LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

i|ap.~^^o^r?gfto. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERK A. i 



Si5:NGERFEST SeRMONS. 



COPYRIGHTED BY 
JAMES BOYD BRADY, 
1891. 



THE 



S^NGERFEsf Sermons 



James Boyd Brady, B.D., D.D. 

Pastor of Franklin Street Methodist Episcopal 
Church, Newark, N. J. 




NEWARK, N. J, 
ADVERTISER PRINTING HOUSE, 
1801 



THE LIIAAKT 
low CON 0»BM 



3 1* a S 3 



To 

The German People who Caused them: 
The Congregations who Listened to them : 
The People of Newark who Encouraged them : 

and all Citizens Interested in 

THE WELFARE OF THIS REPUBLIC, 

and of the world through the 
Propagation of its Fundamental Institution, 
THESE Discourses 
are respectfully committed. 



CONTENTS. 



I.— The Sabbath S^ngerfest of the Germ/.n 

AND OF THE CHRISTIAN CONTRASTED. 

II. — My Apology to the German Penile. 
III. — The Causes and Curses of Sabbath Secu- 
larization. 

TV.— The Methods and Blessings of Sabbath 
Spiritualization. 
V. — The Sabbatarian Prince. 
VI. — The Sabbatarian Prince — Continued. 
VII. — The Sabbatic Knight in Complete Armor. 
VIII. — The Sabbatic Knight in Complete Armor 
— Cotitinued. 
IX. — The Love of Our Sabbath Lord. 
X. — The Supremacy of Law in i h Sabbath 
Sphere. 

XI. — The Tides of Music's Sabbath Sea. 
XII. — This Sabbath Land and Its Mission to the 
Nations. 



vi ■ CONTENTS. 

XIII. — The Necessity of Sabbath Conservation in 

Our Great Cities. 

XIV. — Garland of Gratitude, No. i — For the 

Prosperity of this Land Under Sab- 
bath Ministries. 
XV. — Garland of Gratitude, No. 2 — For the 
Prosperity, of this Land Under Sab- 
bath Ministries. 



PREFACE. 



HE preaching of these sermons was unexpected 



i till a week before their utterance was begun. 
Their publication in present form was as unantici- 
pated as their expression from the pulpit. Circum- 
stances v/ere the factors that called for them from 
without; conviction the power that generated them 
within. The following were the circumstances: 

The officials of the "Great German Saengerfest" 
decided to hold their "grand" quadrennial in New- 
ark, N. J. Five thousand selected singers (it is said), 
from the leading capitals of America, came to sing, 
and one hundred thousand to hear, on the various 
days of the feast. The singers were booked to sing 
on Friday 3rd, Saturday 4th, Sunday 5th, and Mon- 
day 6th of July, 1891. But the 5th of July was the 
Sabbath, and great anxiety and curiosity were felt in 
Newark, as to what the Germans would sing on Sun- 
day, and also as to how they would otherwise keep 
the Sabbath. 

As soon as the programmes were printed, it was 
evident; no more regard had been paid to the Lord's 
Day than to any other day. Instead of showdng the 
customary courtesy to hosts, the Germans actually 
determined, to defiantly violate our Sabbath laws 
on the largest scale, notwithstanding the fact 




viii 



PREFA CE. 



that they were the guests of a Christian city. So 
when the Holy Day came, it was trampled ruthlessly 
in the dust by two hundred thousand German feet in 
the city of Newark — a city noted for its churches, 
charities, and "fair humanities." 

It was then I determined to lift up my voice in 
protestation, whether any man stood by me or not. I 
knew the Lord was with me, and that was enough. 
The first sermon so much excited, not only Newark, 
but America, and the English and German speaking 
world, that many specimens of comments and criti- 
cisms were sent me from all over the commonwealth, 
containing aspersions of the most violent type. See- 
ing that the arrow had entered "between the joints 
of the harness," after due meditation and prayer, I 
deemed it my duty to follow up the attack, till the 
enemy either fled or surrendered. 1 knew I was not 
going to surrender or flee, and I knew, also, that God 
Almighty's Word was sufficient to make any enemy 
do both. 

This has been achieved, and this volume contains 
the truth that accomplished it. The design of pub- 
lication is two-fold. First, to correct the scurrili- 
ties of a large part of the secular press. Certain 
powerful papers have had the nobility to stand 
by the truth, and to them I return sincerest 
thanks; but in the majority of papers I have 
been half-quoted, mis-quoted and substituted. I 
have been mis-represented and mal-represented. 
Represented dancing, represented swearing, repre- 
sented raving madly, represented sane as Solomon 



PREFACE. 



ix 



and savage as the Demoniac of Gadara, represented 
as the most despicable reptile and the most divine 
among men. No name of vulgarity that could be 
thought of but has been applied, and no threat of 
barbarity that could be conceived but has been 
hurled. 

Under these circumstances, I thought it would be 
but just to all who have favored me with either 
human or inhuman attention, to apprise them of what 
I did say and what I did not say; where I stand and 
where I do not stand, and I found there was no 
way of doing this but by supervising my own steno- 
grapher and printer. 

The second part of my motive in permitting the 
following pages to be printed is to do some good to 
my fellow men. ''I never passed this way before. 
* * * I never may again." And therefore I need 
to do what good I can while passing Though 
small, the book contains good news enough, I trust, 
to float multitudes away, from the foaming cataract 
of Sabbath Secularization, out into the safe, serene 
sea, of Sabbath Spiritualization. 

It would be immodest and perhaps super-egotistical 
to say anything about the audiences that waited 
on these discourses during delivery. Still, I can- 
not refrain from here recording my high apprecia- 
tion of, and gratitude to, the great numbers of intelli- 
gent men and women who, time after time, accumu- 
latively to the end, filled the house to overflowing, on 
warm Summer evenings, to hear the truth of God 
concerning His Holy Sabbath and His Sacred Son. 



X 



PREFACE. 



Honesty compels me to say, that for continuity, appre- 
ciation, intelligence and sustained enthusiasm, I have 
at no time seen such congregations anywhere, except 
during great religious awakenings. 

In addition to expressing my appreciation of these 
congregations, I mention this fact, to demonstrate to 
the lethargic and discouraged how the masses of 
intelligent people, in the Church and out of it, are 
hungry for an authoritative solution of the Sabbath 
question. Tt is an issue that comes into powerful 
touch with their weekly life, and they want to know 
what to do with it, and if we, the preachers, do not 
tell them, the devil and his deputies won't be slow 
to show their way of solving it. 

Many talk as though Sabbath spoliation and its 
associate evils, were confirmed invasions we must 
accept, as direful evolutions of our times and place. 
With such cowardly mincing no Christian can have 
sympathy, much less alliance. Whatever may be the 
pandering sentiment touching this matter in other 
large cities, it certainly does not flourish in Newark, 
and by God's help it is proposed it shall not. 

To demonstrate how the people of Newark stand 
with reference to whether the sacred character of 
religion through Sabbatic ministrations shall be sus- 
tained or not, the unrestrainable expressions from the 
audiences during the delivery of the following dis- 
courses have been retained. This is my apology for 
what, under ordinary circumstances, would be an un- 
chaste and indelicate retention. As things stand, 
however, we run the gauntlet of even this accusation, 



PREFACE. 



XI 



in order to let all readers see how dear God's Word, 
Son, Services and Day are to the best people of New 
Jersey. 

These sermons lay no claim to literary merit, or 
rhetorical finish. These feats of pulpit acrobats 
were no part of their design. They were delivered 
each Sabbath morning and evening, like rugged sal- 
vos of artillery, against a great, menacing, living, 
curse. They were given hot from the pulpit 
by the aid of a stenographer immediately to 
the press; and there was neither time nor desire to 
refine and polish them. They do claim, however, 
to contain important truths, drawn forth from 
the shrouded sum of beings and of things, flung 
with a fearless hand, to defeat the rampant out- 
rages of our place and times. If they shall sub- 
serve in large measure this living purpose, then 
the author will be jubilant ; if in small measure, 
grateful; if in no apparent measure, he will still be 
satisfied, as he has the inward consciousness of having 
done his duty. 

Furthermore, these discourses lay no claim to ser- 
monic style, exegetical display or modality of struc= 
ture. The enemy was present. The main object 
was his attack and defeat, and therefore, but little 
regard has been paid to homiletical pruderies. 



The Author. 



- The Sabbatli Saengerfest of the German and 
of the Christian Contrasted. 



Amos V, 23; viii, 10. — " Take thou away from me the noise of thy 
music for I will not hear the melody of thy viols," (violins.) 
* * * << J turn your feasts into mourning and your 
songs into lamentations, and I will bring up sackcloth upon 
all loins and baldness upon every head and I will make it as 
the mourning for an only son, and the end thereof as a 
bitter day." 



Isaiah xxxiv, 10. — " The ransomed of the Lord shall return and 
come to Zion with songs and everlasting joys upon their heads. 
They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sigh- 
ing shall flee away." 



HAT we may see something of the scope, and 



feel somewhat the force of this Sabbath theme, 
it is necessary to remember a few historic facts. 
The Hebrew nation was a great object lesson, set 
in the midst of the earth, and of the ages for all 
mankind to read. The facts recorded of that chosen 
race, are for our instruction and inspiration, upon 
whom in these latter days the " ends of the world 
have come.'' The text in Amos represents the way 



Sunday Evening, July 12, 1891. 



BUT 




2 



THE SABBATH SALNGERFEST, ETC. 



the Almighty dealt with the Hebrews when they 
departed from His commandments, and adopted 
the habits which their own evil hearts prompted 
or the aberrant customs of the Sabbath icono- 
clasts around them suggested. 

The text from Isaiah, portrays with songful 
imagery how, gathering from hill and plain, they 
should exultingly repair, first to the Zion below, and 
next to the Zion above, when they were true to 
the Sabbath day, and to the commands which Jeho- 
vah, grouped around it, and taught during its hal- 
lowed hours by his servants. 

The Hebrew race has in part fulfilled its mission. 
The obedient have gone up. The disobedient 
down. A new race in these times hath God chosen 
to pioneer his cause. All observation proves this 
to be the Aryan race. Settled originally in 
Central Asia on the banks of the Oxus, one branch 
diverged southeastward over the Himalayas, into 
the fertile delta of India ; the other branch spread 
westward, swept into Europe and there formed 
the various nations that have made that continent 
the most progressive and powerful of the Old 
World. Large deportations of that Aryan race 
have during the last two centuries crossed the 
ocean, and settled in this New World, which God 
had kept hidden till the rest of the earth was ripe 
for the accomplishment, of His benevolent designs, 
in heaving America out of the midst of the floods. 



THE SABBATH S^NGERFEST, ETC. 



3 



These Aryan people, whether on this or the other 
side of the Atlantic, are the chosen people of these 
times to diffuse civility, knowledge, humanity, in- 
dustry, progress, peace and salvation throughout 
the earth. 

We belong to this chosen race. Amos defines 
how the Almighty will spurn the songs, and blight 
the feasts and persons of those of us who are faith- 
less to our high commission. Isaiah describes the 
march of sorrowless, and gladsome triumph of those 
who are faithful to their great vocation. 

It is in this condition of affairs that " the burden 
of the word of the Lord," that pressed upon Malachi, 
has been pressing upon me for the last week. A bur- 
den which I cannot throw off if I would, and would 
not if I could. Duty, stern daughter of the voice 
of God," I must follow thee wherever thou dost lead, 
for thou dost weave life's truest pattern, and he 
who is false to thee, breaks a thread in the loom 
and will find the flaw when he has forgotten its 
cause." Therefore, popularity, fame, honor, pro- 
motion aside ; duty, as I see it, I must and will 
follow, though I lose all. [Amens.] Aye, more ; 
threats, executions, flagellations and coarse criti- 
cisms I shall welcome, rather than diverge an inch 
from what I conceive after prayer and faith, study 
and examination to be duty. [Amens, many.] 

And now that duty, however painful, I must 
begin. Would that some one else were charged 



4 



THE SABBATH S^NGERFEST, ETC. 



with the solemn mission ! But woe unto me if I 
am not dutiful. A branch of our Aryan brothers, 
commissioned as are we, to show the love and 
lustre of God to all the world, played false to Him 
and us, in this cit}^ on last Lord's Day. The breach 
was too extensive and influential to pass unnoticed 
by any clear-e3^ed, single-hearted, " watchman on 
the walls of Zion. 

A large number of our young men and women, 
graduates of our Sabbath-schools, were tempted to 
participate in the desecrations of last Sabbath in 
Caledonian Park. Like a bewitching glamour the 
great Saengerfest drew them from their homes, 
their churches, and their God. Of the forty-five 
thousand present, twenty per cent, are said to have 
been our people. And so delighted were they with 
its specious charms that an observer said to me: ''The 
young American Newarkers took to it like ducks 
to water." Who, with any soul of evangelic love, 
can contemplate such a Sunday holocaust with 
either equanimity or hope ? Who, that has a voice 
and place to stand, can survey such pollution of 
our youth through violation of the Sabbath, with- 
out lifting up a voice like a trumpet " against it. 
[Amens many.] 

I hate to stir up strife among the citizens of this 
"no mean cit}-," and as for our German fellow citi- 
zens, there are many elements of excellence in 
them which even Christians can afford to follow. 



THE SABBATH S^NGERFEST, ETC. 



5 



Their superior industry, patience, economy, integ- 
rity, cohesiveness, fortitude, culture, and fidelity to 
secular trusts are pleasantly conspicuous among 
us. Many of them, too, are liberal, progressive 
and religious. They have their churches in our 
midst, and a German Christian is, as a rule, a 
good Christian. Our most benevolent Methodist 
churches are composed of German members. Of 
these I have nothing but good to say. They set 
us an example and we should follow their steps. 
But there are others of this Aryan German- 
American stock who have forced me, as a " watch- 
man of God, to pronounce against them eight 
counts of heinous guilt committed in this city last 
Lord's Day. Some of you, before I conclude, will 
be tempted to say : " He hits rather hard, and with 
too sharp and strong a weapon.'' But let me 
remind you there is no use of striking an elephant 
with common stripes. 

When in Ajmeer of Rajpootana the Rajah 
sent two elephants, caparisoned in royal style, 
to bear me from the new city of the British to the 
old city of the far-famed Rajpoots. While on the 
elephant I noticed my escort carried a heavy long 
pole with a pointed end, and inquired (half suspect- 
ingly) its use. He told me it was to drive the 
elephants. I inquired why he did not use a whip ? 
and received for reply : " Elephants care nothing 
for whips ; it takes goads to guide them.'' The 
application is plain. 



6 THE SABBATH S^NGERFEST, ETC. 



The charges I make are as follows. My warrant 
is in my commission : Them that sin rebuke before 
all, that others also may fear." — Tim. v, 20. 

First — The Germans sold and bought beer, not 
only by the glass but by the barrel, and drank, in 
many instances, to intoxication, on the Lord's day. 

Second — They gambled at the cane-ring, rifle gal- 
leries and wheel of fortune, till many found their 
purses rather depleted, for full enjoyment the rest 
of the holy day. 

Third — They engaged in a singing match for a 
Schubert bust; and it would have been less offensive 
to have engaged in a horse race, since a horse is 
less valuable than a man. This, too, they did on 
the most sacred day of God. 

Fourth — They sang secular songs and ballads 
and played ballad music until it seemed all the gor- 
gons of gloom, and griffins of doom laughed and 
cried. We have taken the city; Newark hence- 
forth shall be ours, since it has become so neglect- 
ful of its interests as to sanction such defaaiation 
of its most holy time." 

Fifth — They paid no regard to the requirements 
of the American Sabbath, and no respect to the 
customs of the American people, any more than if 
we were all dead. 

Sixth — They cast out as evil the counsel of the 
Most High, and trampled one of the most import- 
ant commandments that ever thundered from His 
throne, heedlessly under their feet. 



THE SABBATH SMNGERFEST, ETC. 



7 



Seventh — They wantonly and unblushingly vio- 
lated the spirit and letter, of those great principles 
of equal obedience before the iazv, which have made 
this commonwealth so good, great and prosperous. 

Eighth — They not only shockingly shattered the 
laws of this State, but they wilfully, knowingly 
and flagrantly outraged the laws of this City, in 
which they were treated with great hospitality and 
deference by people of all creeds and classes. See 
page 304 and Sections 647 and 648 of our City 
Ordinances. 

But some may say the Germans should be 
indulged a little for what they did during the 
Civil War. No matter how much citizens have 
done for the State, it does not justify them in 
breaking the laws of the State. This is an 
axiom in jurisprudence to which all statesmen 
assent. No man has a right even by extraordinary 
services, to the State to claim exemption from the 
rightful laws of the State. And if such a right of 
fracture cannot be procured by service, how much 
less by foreign birth and ancestry. The claim is 
put in by many on behalf of the Germans, " Oh 
well, it's the custom of their country to infract the 
Sabbath, and therefore we must let them do it in 
this country." 

It's the custom of Brahmans and Mohammedans 
to shiver to atoms the dishes from which Christians 
have eaten. I have had mine so shattered. They 



8 THE SABBATH SMNGERFEST, ETC. 



can do that if they please in their own country, 
but as sure as the sun shines, they cannot come in- 
to my house and smash my dishes. [Laughter.] 
But, supposing men could, by meritorious service, 
acquire the right to rise superior to, and lord it 
over the laws of the State, what have our German 
brethren achieved for the formation and integra- 
tion of this Republic, that should lead them to in- 
dulge such pretentious assumptions? How can 
they have the cool effrontery, to come here 
and appear by their actions to say, " We are 
superior to your Sunday laws. We come 
from Germany, where they don't care any- 
thing about Sunday any more than any other day, 
and we are going to have our way here, law or no 
law." W^ho are these, that the}^ can afford to 
defy the mission of American law ? I acknowl- 
edge they did something during the late Civil 
War ; but, is not that offset by the mercenary 
Hessians, who fought against Washington for the 
sake of British gold ? But, that aside, what have 
the German brethren done for the founding and 
development of this great commonwealth ? It was 
the colonists of English ancestry who, first of all, 
threw off the British yoke. It was the Irishmen 
of Pennsylvania, that supported Washington in 
many of his hard campaigns. It was the French 
who, when despair hovered over all the land 
from Maine to Georgia, came to the rescue and 



THE SABBATH SAtNGERFEST, ETC. 



lavishly supplied both money and troops, till they 
enabled the Commander-in-Chief to invest and then 
capture Cornwallis at Yorktown. [Applause, that 
was suppressed by the preacher.] It was the Span- 
iards who somewhat seconded the efforts of the 
French, and it was an Italian (Columbus, of Genoa), 
who with the aid of Ferdinand and Isabella dis- 
covered the land. But what conspicuous achieve- 
ments have the Germans accomplished ? 

Supposing, however, they had done great things; 
if they had even discovered the country ; if they 
had wrenched it from the avaricious clutch of 
Britons; if they had framed the constitution ; if 
they had fought the battles of 1812; if they had 
shone in military resplendence in the Mexican 
campaign ; if they had been the pioneer corps, that 
moved in the van of westward wending empire, 
opening up the land ; if they had developed our 
agricultural and mining resources ; if they had 
established our educational system, and our hu- 
manitarian charities ; if they had even established 
our churches, schools, colleges and been the life and 
soul of our mechanical contrivances. Even had they 
accomplished all these and man}^ more valuable 
achievements, nevertheless, I stand herein the name 
of this country, and in the name of Almighty God, 
to declare that they have no more right to prostitute 
the Sabbath laws of this Republic, State and City 
than they have to go to Washington and blow up the 
Capitol. [Applause that could not be suppressed.] 



TO 



THE SABBATH S.EXGERFEST, ETC. 



It is deplorable to see so exalted and responsible 
an American citizen as his Honor, Leon Abbett, 
the Governor of this State, figure as the friend of a 
society which prostitutes the holy Sabbath, an 
institution which it is his duty to support and 
defend. It is distressing to see his Honor, Joseph 
E. Haynes, the Mayor of this great and growing 
city (renowned for the multiplicity of its manufac- 
tures), presented as in the pocket of President 
Brewer Krueger, favoring a convocation which, 
during its visit as our guest, shattered every Sab- 
bath law on our statute book. It is ver}^ startling 
to find so good a man as George A. Halse}^ Esq., 
acting as Honorary President. And it is almost 
equally shocking to find Allan L. Bassett, Esq., 
President of our Board of Trade, and P. T. Quinn, 
Esq., Secretary of that Board, appearing physiog- 
nomically on a programme of an assembly that 
was conspicuous above all things, for its violation 
of that day, whose observance has made possible 
such an excellent Board of Trade. [Applause.] 

But it is claimed that our German citizens 
are mighty in music. Granted. But where did 
their music come from? Did it come from the 
old thunder-god Thor of the ancient Teuton? 
Did it evolve from any of the gods of the Scaldic 
Sagas, or from any other idolatrous and barbaric 
source ? 1 can assure you nay ! It has been my 
duty in order to become prepared for the mission 



THE SABBATH SjENGERFEST, ETC. 



II 



which I feel God has for me in this world, to 
visit and examine nearly every heathen country on 
the globe. My ears were ever on the alert for 
music. But in no land unpermeated to quite an 
extent with Christianity, through Sabbath ser- 
vices, did I hear anything worthy of the name of 
song. Starting on the minor key, all unchristian 
lands croon out a weird, plaintive, piteous wail 
that makes one distressingly sad, who has been 
swept with the triumphant symphonies of Chris- 
tendom. 

No, there is little or no symphony outside of 
Sabbath-keeping lands. The heart, man's great 
melodist, has not been made melodic, and how can 
the people sing? The Divine Harmonist, through 
Sabbath ministries, has not re-strung their cardiac 
chords to the lyre of heaven, and hence there can 
be no melody. 

This being a historic fact, I return to my ques- 
tion. Where did our German citizens obtain their 
superior soul-swelling music ? A child can answer ; 
from the Church of God. It began with Miriam 
and Moses, in response to divine deliverance ; it 
was continued by David and his musicians through 
the tabernacle Sabbath services ; it flowed on in 
ever refining strains, through the long-drawn aisles 
of Solomon's temple ; it received a new impetus 
that flooded to the full, human beings with Sab- 
batic and divine emotions, when the Great Messiah 



12 



THE SABBATH S^NGERFEST, ETC. 



came, and just before His final battle He with His 
disciples "sang an hymn.'' 

Then, the goddess of music, which had long 
been trammeled, was set free. She took her way 
through Asia Minor, Thessalonica and Italia ; on 
over white-hooded Alps into the forests of Thurin- 
gia ; on along the banks of the hmpid Rhine and 
arrowy Rhone, subduing the savage breasts of 
aboriginal Germanic tribes ; and though restricted 
for a time by the arrogant abuses of the Papacy, 
during the " Dark Ages," yet Savonarola in Italy, 
Huss in Bohemia, Calvin in Switzerland, and 
Luther and Melancthon in Germany, once more 
set her free. On she took her course, with brighter 
sheen and calmer features and more melodic voice 
than ever, over France, across the British channel, 
and charmed with her Sabbatic strains the then 
disrupted Isle of Britain. 

Nor stayed she on the other side the sea, but 
from the Mayflower, of precious memory, spread 
her Sabbath sonnets far and wide over this new 
asylum of the free. But it was on her course 
hither, as the symphonic chieftainess of the new 
world, that she was caught by the ancestors of our 
German citizens in Europe, and afterward Handel, 
Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Cho- 
pin, Mendelssohn, Wagner, and all other great 
composers drew not only many of their themes, but 
all of their lofty inspirational moods from her Sab- 



THE SABBATH S^NGERFEST, ETC, 



batic presence. Sabbatic, I say, for had it not been 
for the Sabbath she never should have been born. 
This is demonstrated by the fact, that she has not 
appeared in Sabbathless lands, except as carried 
there in Christian hearts. 

Now, then, since the Gospel Sabbath, through 
the Church, is the mother of all inspiring song, 
and since that Sabbath is the day consecrated by 
Jehovah, dedicated by the Church, and appointed 
by the American State for the contemplation and 
the praise of our Creator and Preserver, I take 
this stand, fearlessly and firmly, as a minister of 
God and an American citizen that this holy day 
should not, and by the help of heaven shall not, be 
polluted by profane songs, even if they are the 
degenerate progeny of an apostatized section of 
God's Holy Church. [Amens and hallelujahs.] 

Now I come to the Saengerfest proper, which is 
said to have captured Newark and set her wild 
with joy. As an aged maiden, long neglected, 
approached by a jovial suitor, forgets her wrinkles, 
puts on her powdered lavender, with her gayest 
attire, and tries simperingly to look smart and 
young ; so Newark at the approach of the Saenger- 
festites, supplied herself abundantly with her most 
odoriferous and gummy fluid ; tricked in her most 
variegated finery, and flaunting in her red, white 
and blue bunting presented herself to dance obedi- 
ence to the Sabbath befouling sackbuts of the 

2 



THE SABBATH SyENGERFEST, ETC. 



Sabbath defiling Teuton. I pronounce it a dese- 
cration ol the stars and stripes (those symbols of 
our National light, liberty, purity and God-given 
power), to hang them out in honor of a convention 
that came here to pollute our Holy Sabbath day. 
[Shouts of applause that could not longer be re- 
strained.] But then as to the music ; they say it 
was grand. Yes, grand atheistic wind. I have 
been informed from a source that I have no reason 
to doubt, that the Saengerfestites and the Turners 
are the atheistic wings of the German-American 
people, and that is one reason why I call their 
music atheistic wind. 

Let us now contrast this Godless storm on the 
Lord's night with some of the hallowed strains of 
Zion, sung in the churches on the same evening. 
There were nine pieces on the Saengerfest pro- 
gramme. First the prelude The Meistersinger of 
Nuernberg ; " this was executed by the orchestra. 
Mr. Frank Van der Stucken mounts the dais and 
waves the baton. The great instrumental band 
strikes in at his signal. The waves of artful 
sound swell through the great auditorium. 
There are masterful science and art displayed on 
the great occasion. But where is the God who has 
not even been acknowledged on His own Sabbath 
night. He doubtless heard the prayerless pre- 
lude and if He said anything, it must have been 
some such words as those of our text, Take thou 



THE SABBATH S^NGERFEST, ETC. 



15 



away from me the noise of thy music, for I will not 
hear the melody of thy viols (violms)." Contrast 
this with Handel's Oratorio of the Messiah, Haydn's 
Creation, Mendelssohn's Elijah, and many other 
sacred classic compositions, which they might have 
played and sung and which were presented in the 
churches. Human structures of Holy Symphony 
which angels might well fold their wings to hear. 
Oratorios which remind us of our second text, 
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return 
and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy 
upon their heads ; they shall obtain joy and glad- 
ness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." 

The second piece was Weihe des Liedes," 
signifying the consecration of song, and it 
would have pleased many exceedingly, if that 
consecration of song suggested by the title, had 
been carried out during that Sabbath evening; 
alas, this was not done, for the next piece was a 
" violin concerto", and the one after it was a grand 
chorus called " The Songs," but there was no 
worship, no God, in these secular perform- 
ances, and it was not intended there should be. 
More suitably, indeed, might that vast assemblage 
of God-defying and Sabbath-breaking singers have 
sung : 

" Plunged in a gulf of dark despair 
We wretched sinners lie, 
Without one cheering gleam of hope 
We're unprepared to die.'" 



1 6 THE SABBATH S^NGERFEST, ETC, 



And it would have been pieasing to have found 
them following this up with the additional un- 
paraphrased stanza of that majestic Hymn of 
Isaac Watts: 

" With pitying ej'es the Prince of grace 
Beheld our helpless grief: 
He saw, and, O amazing love! 
He ran lo our relief." 

[Amens and Hallelujahs.] 

The fifth piece was the aria from Samson and 
Delilah." No doubt this was artistically superior 
for it was sung- by a competent diva of the opera, 
who could put into it all the grotesque good humor 
of Samson Agonistes, on the one hand, and the radi- 
ant charms of Delilah Deception on the other. But 
it is a wholly un-Sabbatic production, utterly un- 
fitted to waft the souls of men upward, in befitting 
gratitude toward God. Contrast this with the 
adoring strains of Addison, and consider how 
infinitely superior they are for a Sabbath evening. 

" When all Thy mercies, O my God, 
My rising soul surveys, 
Tiansported with the view, I'm lost 
In wonder, love, and praise," etc. 

[Amens and Hallelujahs.] 

The next was ballad music by the orchestra and 
the one after that was " Heather Rose," by the 



THE SABBATH S^NGERFEST, ETC. 



17 



Cappella. But they played and sang with a mere 
eye to art on the Lord's night, instead of a profound 
emotion of adoration and love. And on account of 
this profanation, they ought to have heard the re- 
pelling words of Jehovah the Almighty in thunder 
crashing over them, " Take thou away from me the 
noise of thy music," etc. How differently we felt 
here in this Church, with the spiritual singing on 
the same evening, of — 

" Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish; 
Come to the mercy-seat, fervently kneel; 
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; 
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal," etc, 

[Hallelujahs and glories.] 

The eighth was a double, {a) " Murmeludes Lueft- 
chen," and(^) " Fruehlingslied," which respectively 
mean, " Murmuring Zephyr," and Spring Song." 
These were no doubt highly artistic, sentimental 
and realistic. But amid it all, the thunder of the 
word of an incensed God on account of His out- 
raged Sabbath, was breaking over them in repel- 
ling disapproval, *' take thou away from before 
me the noise of thy music," etc. How inhnitely 
better we are in our churches on Sunday nights, 
my friends, singing such soul-soothing sonnets as — 

" Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear, 
It is not night if thou be near," etc. 

[Amens.] 



18 



THE SABBATH SMNGERFEST, ETC. 



The closing" piece was the Festival H3^mn." 
There may have been friendship, sociality and 
sentiment in it. But how much superior that 
great band of men would have been, if they had 
sung soberly, appreciatively, and appropriatingly 
that Sabbath evening — 

"Abide with me, fast falls the eventide; 
The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide. 
When other helpers fail and comforts flee, 
Help of the helpless, O, abide with me," etc. 

[Amens many.] 

The Lord loves the Germans as He has loved us. 
He died for them as for us. They are as dear to 
Him as any other nation, and His cry of pity over 
them is, How shall I give thee up?" [Tears.] 
Oh, that they would turn unto Him and live. 
They are physically and intellectually a great 
people, and if they will accept the salvation, the 
very Son of God died to procure for them, they 
shall be equally great spiritually. O, for a hun- 
dred spiritual regiments of these men, whose 
military war cry is, " Forward, ever forward," 
to join the advanced thinkers, and workers m 
America, in fusing the various nationalities into 
one great, sympathetic, homogeneous, harmonic 
whole. This would aid greatly the work of 
national assimilation of our commonwealth. And 
why not? The glory of the Germanic confedera- 



THE SABBATH SyENGE 'kFEST, ETC. 



19 



tion, the grandeur of the Gernir.n throne, have been 
built up and made cohesive, by the religious life of 
the best people in Germany. The beer and balder- 
dash of infidelity and Atheism would soo.i disinte- 
grate this lovely structure, tb.e rejult of ages, if 
they were to become the rulin elements. And as 
these evil elements would ruui German}^, so they 
would America. Let us pray and worl: for the 
evangelization of the Ger.r:an people. Their 
safety, and the safety of this Republic are 
dependent upon their conversion to God the 
Almighty. [Cries, " That's so.''] 

The young Kaiser, 1 see, hr.s lately been visiting 
England, and has had a regnl v/elcome, and I am 
very glad of it. When last in Berlin I was con- 
stantly impressed, not so much v/ith the statesman- 
ship of Bismarck, and the military genius of Von 
Moltke, as by the humanitarian, democratic and 
religious characteristics of tl:C royal family of Ger- 
many. The evidences of these are 0:1 every hand. 
These, after all, more than all else, under God, 
have made united German}- ; and I am, therefore, 
glad to see that Britons have received the young 
and manly Emperor so cordiall}^ Now there is a 
Prince whom that young German Emperor seeks 
and serves, and He is our Jesiis, the Prince of 
peace." [Amens and hallelujahs.] Let us pray 
that Our German citizens may speedily receive 
Him who proves the glorious Saviour, of the 



THE SABBATH S^NGERFEST, ETC. 



Kaiser of the land of their nativity. Then, in this 
land of their adoption, with flags intertwined and 
hearts interwoven we shall together Return and 
come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon 
our heads, and we shall obtain joy and gladnesss 
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.'' [Amens, 
hallelujahs, and deep feeling.] 



Note,— Such were the criticism, clamor and demands for im- 
mediate apology for the preceding discourse, that the preacher 
delivered the following on the next Sabbath morning. 



My Apology to the German People. 



Sunday Morning, July 19, 1891. 

I. Cor,, ix, 3, — "Mine answer to them that do examine me 
is this:" 

Acts 20:24. — " But none of these things move me, neither count 
I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course 
with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Loid 
Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God." 

QT. PAUL, like his Master, was a plain speaker, 
^ especially when he attacked living systems 
of error. He never attacked any other kind of 
error. You do not read of Paul wasting his time 
striking at the Antediluvians. Whenever he spoke 
he struck a living thing. Hence he attacked the 
Jewish sinners and the Gentile sins. He had no time 
to waste in preaching at cemeteries ; nor have 
I ! My mission is to living men. It was so with 
Jesus, Elijah; with Savonarola, Knox, Huss, Luther, 
Whitefield and Wesley. They all attacked with 



2 2 MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE. 



vigor the sins of their times. I received letters 
during the past Vv^eek saying I was personal. 
I admit that I have been personal. I can not help 
being personal if I do ray duty. Elijah was a very 
personal man. When King Ahab came to him 
after the drought of three years and six months 
and Slid, "Art thou he that troubleth Israel?" 
Elijah answered and said, " I have not troubled 
Israel, but tJioit and thy Father's house." He 
aimed at his man and brought him dow^n. The 
same thing was true of Nathan when David fell into 
sin with Bathshcba. Nathan did not go about 
saying some one had done wrong. He came out 
before the King and said, Thou art the man." 
And David repented and was saved. Jesus was as 
personal as eitlier Elijah or Nathan. He did not 
go round talking of past events, but about the 
needs of his times. Hence when He speaks, 
He speaks to living men. He had words 
of sympathy and help for the needy and penitent, 
but for the self-sufficient Pharisees He had words 
of warning and tones of thunder. He said : Ye 
Pharisees, hypocrites "—direct personal address. 
''How can ye escape the damnation of hell?" 
Rousing appeal ! 

Therefore, I do not care how prominent a name 
may be, if it is associated with grave public wrong 
I am going to mention it. 

That kind of preaching brought upon Paul 



MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE, 23 

persecutions, by ''stripes and imprisonments." More- 
over, "Thrice he was beaten with rods, once stoned." 
Notwithstanding all this he was strong to rise up 
and say, " None of these things move me, neither 
count I my life dear unto myself." They have been 
able to mutilate my body ; those stripes and stones 
distressed my flesh, but "me," Paul the spirit, "none 
of these things move me." There are persecutions 
just as heavy now as then — different kind of course. 
But whenever a mighty mountain of sin, is energet- 
ically and fearlessly attacked now, there will be 
as strong upheavals, as there were at Lystra and 
Philippi or any other place where Paul preached the 
Gospel. This is seen from the simple fact, that last 
Sunday night, I stood in this place and preached 
on the condition, of certain of my fellow citizens 
with most benevolent design. Yet such is the 
storm raised that one church is known, and one 
preacher traduced from ocean to ocean. Com- 
ments and criticisms, of the most scurrilous kind 
have been made upon me, in thousands of papers 
throughout the land. Names from the meanest 
insect to the highest fiend have been conferred upon 
me. But " mine answer to them that examine me 
is this'' : "none of these things move me, neither 
could 1 my life dear unto myself, that I might 
finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I 
have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gos- 
pel of the grace of God." [Amens and hallelujahs.] 



24 MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE. 

If I were to burden you with the number of 
threats, that have come to me you would be 
appalled. " If found in any German community in 
the Union I should be torn limb from limb. If I 
ever go to Hoboken or New York, I am to be 
thrown into the Hudson, turned into a fish and 
then devoured by the devil ; my ministerial repu- 
tation is gone ; I shall never get another church ; 
my former church was glad to get rid of me, 
and my present one would be glad to get 
me out." Well, this is bad enough. But None 
of these things move me, neither count I my 
life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my 
course with joy, and the ministry which I have re- 
ceived of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of 
the grace of God." [Amens and hallelujahs all 
over the house.] 

I have not time or desire to take special notice of 
newspaper scandals, further than to say, that an ex- 
pert in this regard in New York said, there had been 
sent from many newspapers and periodicals multi- 
tudes of clippings to various parts of the world, so 
that Franklin Street is known all over the earth by 
this time, or will be when the ships get around with 
the notices. If people from Canton and Singa- 
pore, come to see what kind of people you are, 
you will understand it. Most of this has been 
done for scandalization, but God will surely work 
it all out for His glory, and the good of His 



MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE. 25 



cause, therefore not even cosmopolitan newspaper 
scandalization moves me. This is the old attack 
on the nation, in the new form of breaking down the 
Sabbath, the most sacred institution we have. 
Who are the men that do this shameful work? 
They are not all of any one nationality. But they 
are all imbued with the same lawless and perverse 
spirit. 

They are possessed of the same spirit of the old- 
time rebels, who said to the South, ''go out," and 
to the North, " keep back," and let there be a dis- 
ruption of these states. These are the men who 
favor Sabbath-breaking. You see in the news- 
papers the same old disintegrating force at work. 
They gather around the fair tree of the Church 
as so many poisonous worms beset the palm of 
the Orient. When Orientals wish to deprive 
these worms of their destructiveness, they take 
a species of tar and about six feet up the tree 
paint a girdle round it. My friends let us girdle 
the Sabbath with heroic protests, before the vipers 
get up and destroy the flowers, and fruit of a cen- 
tury's cultivation. God grant that the church may 
become earnest in this matter, and so by heaven's 
help keep the Sabbath Day inviolate. [Amens all 
over.] 

I do not care what happens me if the Sab- 
bath is kept holy, and my German brethren saved. 
If I could save our German brethren in this city, I 



26 MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE. 



would lay down my body in the street and let them 
w^alk over it to salvation. Albeit, my German 
friends, are as a rule, possessed of a large share of 
adipose tissue, which I do not now care to diagnose. 
My ministry has been received from the Lord Jesus. 
My business is to testify the Gospel of the grace of 
God. Jesus the Jehovah is the Being from whom 
I received my commission. I have received it from 
the Newark Conference, only as a form, of ratifica- 
tion. My real commission comes from the King. 
If all the Conferences in the world, stood between 
my King and me, I would walk over them and say, 
''Master, what wouldst thou have me to do?'' I 
have little business with what man says, but 1 have 
very important business, with what my Lord and 
Master says. [Amens and hallelujahs.] What is the 
business of a minister ? To testify the Gospel of 
the grace of God. Yes, says some one, then you 
are to preach love? Certainly, my dear friend, from 
whom I received that letter about love. 1 know 
that love is the beautiful grace and '' God is love," 
but when he made the moral universe, there had 
to be many other virtues with love. There must 
be justice and temper aiice and patience and fortitude, 
for these graces are all important, and the Gospel 
includes them all. The Gospel is full of love, but 
implies everything else that is right in the moral 
world. Hence the Gospel is of a corrective nature 



MV APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE. 27 

and it must denounce all public wrong. We have 
seen that in what we have said, concerning Elijah 
and Jesus and St. Paul. This, therefore, is a part 
of the Gospel, and if you will look to your own his- 
tory you will have an illustration. You remember 
when you were a boy, going out after your mother 
had told you to stay in. She began to lay on the 
rod energetically for a lady. You hopped around 
and didn't like it, but when you grew up to 
know your mother, you blessed her for every 
time she restrained you. Every man here who 
has had a faithful mother and father knows 
that justice, is as necessary in the household as 
love. 

What is true in the family circle, is true in 
the State, for the State is only an extended family. 
If one of the .members persist in breaking an 
important law, what is to be done? Somebody 
ought to do the correcting. The State ought to 
do it. But the State often does not live up to its , 
duty, and this city sometimes winks at sin, and . 
there seemed no one else to do it, and hence it was 
left to me. What I have said and what 1 shall say 
is because I love the German people, and because I 
love the Newark people. There is no man, woman 
or child in this city whom I can not take to my 
heart and love, whether German, French, Irish, 
Chinese or Japanese. My Master loved and died 
for them all, and should not I ? 



28 MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE. 

f have an apology to make, but before mak- 
ing that apology, I want to say, furthermore, 
that I am debtor to every man, woman and 
child in this city. Paul was a debtor to the 
Jew, the Greek, the bond and free, and the com- 
mission under which I labor makes me a debtor 
to every man and woman in this city. I owe 
every citizen of this city, the glorious Gospel 
of the grace of God. I have shown my sense 
of debt and love, to the people, by standing in 
the front of the storm. I surmised that none 
of the other ministers in town, would speak on 
this subject of Sabbath desecration. I feared 
they were afraid to touch it. Therefore all the 
more need for me, or some one, to come out 
and speak against the breaking of the law, the 
trampling on the Holy Bible, and the desecration 
of the Sabbath Day. I am willing to show that 
I love my German brethren as I love myself ; 

though the more I love the less I be loved.'' 1 
did not use all the terms attributed to me by the 
multitude of reporters. When these sermons are 
published, my fellow citizens will see this. Re- 
porters in the back seats, please take note of 
that. These reporters — God help them — who 
write for a penny a line, must write spicy, sharp 
articles to make their productions acceptable in 
competition with several others at the office, and 



MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE. 29 



SO, you see, they have strong temptation to make a 
speaker appear ridiculous. Well, there are some 
of you here this morning, and I see you and know 
you. We will all have our day, and truth and hon- 
esty will be crowned, and falsity and dishonesty 
will be damned. I have nothing to take back of 
what I did say, and I do not feel disposed to apolo- 
gize for what reporters said. Luther, before the 
Diet of Worms, could not help himself for the 
stand which he took. He would gladly have com- 
plied with the persistent entreaties of his friends, if 
there had been no God, but looking to God he 
said : 

" Hier stehe Ich, Id kann niche anders; Gott helf mir." 

That sentence has gone through all German his- 
tory — a sentence of glory working its way into 
many a German heart and making it triumph over 
sin. I take my stand by the side of Luther, and 
say : "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God 
help me I say more ; that just as Luther over- 
turned the Papacy in Europe, as he overturned 
systems of indulgence, the sins of proscrip- 
tion and persecution and made Europe free by 
taking this stand, so, my dear German friends, 
would to God that we might go up into your beer 
gardens, and turn them into Christian camp grounds, 



30 MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAX PEOPLE. 

and take worldly songs out of 3^our mouths ; and 
put spiritual songs into 3'our hearts. [A flood of 
am ens and hallelujahs.] 

Now if you will permit us, we will do it. I have 
the best band of Christian workers in this church 
I ever saw, and we are ready to go up. How dif- 
ierent would be conditions after we had been 
there awhile. How happy you would grow on the 
new wine of the Kingdom of God. There would 
not be any need of beer. We get gloriously 
happy without the article. No more Sabbath vio- 
lation ; no more sinful pleasures, unbelief, doubt, 
rationalism, atheism. We would turn Caledonian 
Park into a hallelujah meeting that would bless 
city, and State, countr}', and world. [Many amens 
and glories.] 

Now I have an apology to make to you. I have 
this apology to make, because I received a 
bushel of letters and newspapers, all demanding an 
apology. Some of the newspapers have said that 
if Brady doesn't get down on Newark streets, and 
apologize to the German people, he is no Christian. 
Now 1 have an apology to make. 

First — I apologize to you, my German friends, 
because I did not sooner declare to yon the evils, of the 
Sunday habits in which you have been indulging 
before you became so confirmed in them. When 
pastor of Central church I should have lifted up 



MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE. 31 



rny voice in such tones that you would have heard 
on the "hill," as you hear now. [Amens, halle- 
lujahs and great feeling.] 

Second — I apologize, my German brethren, be- 
cause 1 did not sooner show you the appalling 
end, of the evils in which you are in the habit 
of indulging every Sabbath of your lives. 

Third — I apologize to you, my German brethren, 
on behalf of all the Christians in all the churches 
who have not had sufficient Christianity, to lift up 
their voices against your desecration of God's 
holy day and so save your precious souls. 

Fourth — I apologize to you, my German breth- 
ren (1 would to God it were Christian brethren), 
on behalf of the ministry of Newark, that, (al- 
though you were in the garden of our Sabbath, 
trampling on the choicest spiritual plants of a 
century's growth and culture), lifted not up 
its voice strong enough, for you to hear a tone. 
Get that all down, ye reporters. [Amens over 
the house.] 

FiftJi — I apologize, my German brethren, be- 
cause the Christians in this land, have not suf- 
hciently appreciated you, so as to bring you 
up into the church of the living God, and util- 
ize all your symphonic powers, in spreading the 
gospel of Jesus Christ, and so save your own souls, 
those of your families and of many around you. 



32 MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE. 



Sixth — I apologize to you, my German breth- 
ren, not because we do not appreciate HandePs 
Messiah," Beethoven's Pastoral," and Mendels- 
sohn's Elijah," for these we do appreciate, but 1 
do apologize because we have not made you 
familiar with the melodies of Watts, and the 
magnificence of Charles Wesley, and of other 
sweet Hymnists, who have helped Faith to sway 
her sceptre over the world for the last hundred 
years. 

For these things T apologize, but I have no apol- 
ogy to make for one single jot or tittle, of anything 
that I said, and I have no reason to apologize for 
reporters, for saying I said things I didn't say. God 
bless the reporters. He can bless even them — 
pretty hard business. [Laughter.] 

Your reformation, my German fellow citizens, 
under Luther, has made us acquainted with the 
great doctrines of the Scriptures. Indeed, it has 
made us acquainted with the Scriptures them- 
selves, for before that, the Bible was for cen- 
turies a sealed book. And all through the 
vicissitudes of that great man's life there came 
to the Church a glorious force of victory. That 
hidden force is the fortress in which I hide myself 
on all occasions of storm. Dr. Talmage says, when 
he gets up a storm in Brooklyn, he goes to Coney 
Island. When I get up a storm in Newark, I go to 



MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE. 33 

my knees and pray until I get the victory. Then 
I say let the storm sweep. Your great reformer 
who gave to Methodism its possibilities, used 
to sing his storm-swept soul into strength by 
chanting — 

** Ein feste Burg is unser Gott, 
Ein gute wehr und waffen," etc. 

We all need this strong, this Almighty Fortress 
of which Luther sings — And we have it, too, 
thank God. But we need to do something. The 
commission of our Master is, Go ye into all the 
world and preach the Gospel to every creature 
beginning at Jerusalem." (I want you to get 
this down, gentlemen of the press.) Don't take 
the whey and leave the cream as you usually do. 
I say that as Methodists our mission is to go." 
All good goes by method. The bad alone is 
methodless. And so we are to go and save others 
methodically. Our mission is an unintermittent 
progression, from conversion to world-wide evan- 
gelization. We dare not stop, our march is 
onward. There are people who believe in staying 
at home, and having a good social time, and letting 
the devil get the people. We don't believe in any 
such treason. [Amens like a flood.] We believe in 
having a good spiritual time, by going out into the 



34 MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE. 

world, and stretching out a helping hand to the 
helpless, and lifting up men who have fallen. We 
go forth with the cry : 



" O for a thousand tongues to sing 
My great Redeemer's praise ; 
The glories of my God and King, 
The triumphs of his grace ! 

My gracious Master and my God, 

Assist me to proclaim, 
To spread through all the earth abroad, 

The honors of thy name. 

Jesus ! the name that charms our fears, 
That bids our sorrows cease ; 

"Tis music in the sinner's ears, 
'Tis life, and health, and peace. 

He breaks the power of canceled sin. 

He sets the prisoner free ; 
His blood can make the foulest clean ; 

His blood availed for me. 



He speaks, and, listening to His voice, 

New life the dead receive ; 
The mournful, broken hearts rejoice ; 

The humble poor believe. 

Hear Him, ye deaf ; His praise, ye dumb, 
Your loosened tongues employ ; 

Ye blind, behold your Saviour come ; 
And leap, ye lame, for joy." 



[Great feeling and hallelujahs.] 



MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE. 35 

Now my German brethern, I have only one 
illustration to draw that will enable you to see 
where I stand. You have no better friend in 
Newark than you have in me. I am willing 
to do or say anything that is right, for your 
welfare. I said a good many things that no- 
body else dare say. Herein I have proved my 
love for you. 

Supposing on the Niagara River there is a beau- 
tiful flotilla coming down ; charming music, flags 
flying, beer passing round and down ; most glorious 
time for a beer bibber ; many people on shore, all 
saying, " Ha, ha ! what magnificent rfiusic, what a 
beautiful flotilla.'' But all this time that float 
is drifting toward the circle of the great Niagara 
plunge. One man on shore sees it and lifts his 
voice like a trumpet over the river and cries : 
" The rapids are before you ; steer for the shore ! " 
The captain hears the warning, turns shoreward 
and the people are saved. Now I ask whether 
those flattering admirers of the flotilla, on shore 
or the man who had the love, to hft up 
his voice and give the warning cry, is the flot- 
illa's friend. You have been using Sunday as 
the stream of time, to drift you toward the 
great Niagara of destruction, instead of toward 
the glorious goal of Heaven, and I again lift 
up my voice and say: Brethren, cease making Sun- 



36 MY APOLOGY TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE, 



day a drinking da}\ and use it as a Divine day 
and God will bless you now and forever. [x\mens 
like a sea.] 



Note. — The interest excited by the apology, was even more 
intense than that resulting from the charge, and so the suc- 
ceeding sermons were preached according to the demands of the 
hours as they arose. 



Sabbath Secularization. 



Sabbath Evening, July ig, 1891. 



Ex. XX, 8 — " Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy;" 
Mai. iv, 6—" Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." 



OT^HERE was not time on last Sunday night to 
say all that should be said at this time on 
Sabbath Desecration. I therefore resume the 
theme to-night, for the purpose of shedding much 
needed light upon this all-important theme. 

I shall treat the subject under two simple heads, 
which will be easily by you remembered : 

I. — The Causes of Sabbath Violation. 

II. — The Curses that Follow It. 

I. — The Causes. 

First — Among these I place a misconcep- 
tion of the high and authoritative origin of the 
Sabbath Day. In that vast natural cathedral of 
Arabia, spired and turreted with its battlements 
of reddish rock, whither the Children of Israel, 
under the leadership of Moses, had gone to receive 
the Law of God for all mankind, the thunder of 
the Divine Voice first was heard by man. That 




3 



38 



SABBA TH SECULARIZA TION, 



Voice commanded Moses to come up to a loftier 
granitic shrine, and there receive that code of 
morals which was a transcript of the Eternal Mind 
for all nations and all times. Moses obeyed, and 
tells us that upon two tables of stone, with His 
own finger, God wrote out the Ten Command- 
ments. The fourth of these was : ^' Remember 
the Sabbath Day to keep it holy." This com- 
mand, therefore, is not of common origin. It 
is not a temporary ordinance, which may be put 
off with impunit}' , like an inconvenient robe. It is 
a part of the infinite fitness of this universe, there- 
fore of equal force, authority and importance with 
"Thou shalt not kill," " Thou shalt not steal," and 
all the others. It is as immutable in its nature, and 
as exacting in its claims, as any one of the ten, and, 
indeed, there are reasons which, as I proceed, shall 
show why, in some weighty regards, it is most im- 
portant of all the others. 

Wherefore, " Remember the Sabbath Day to 
keep it holy," "lest I come and smite the earth 
with a curse." 

Second — The prostitution of the Sabbath is 
caused by a misunderstanding of the mean- 
ing of this day. It had a peculiar significance, 
all its own, then ; it has an exclusive sanctity 
peculiar to itself still. It was to be a sign, a signal, 
a standard of inviolate covenant between God 
and His chosen people, and hence Jehovah said : 



SABBA TH SECULARIZA TIO.V. 



39 



" Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep, for it is a 
sign between me and you throughout your gen- 
erations." 

Idolatrous nations were to be around the 
Israelites on every hand — the Phoenicians, the 
Moabites, the Midianites, the Syrians, the Ara- 
bians — practicing their idolatries, of Moloch, and 
Ashtaroth and Baal, gods of their own vile 
invention. They had turned, as most nations 
of the earth, from the real spiritual Almighty 
Being, who made the sea, the sky, the stars, 
the hills, and all things. And now there was. 
danger of the Israelites becoming contaminated by 
the customs of their neighbors, and so here was 
one-seventh of time lifted up to sanctity and emi- 
nence among them, to remind them every week of 
Him who had brought them up out of the land of 
Egypt with an high hand and an outstretched 
arm.'' And so long as they kept the Sabbath holy 
they never fell into idolatry ; but when they pros- 
tituted it to visiting the carnivals of the heathen, 
they speedily lapsed into the horrible moral condi- 
tion of the idolaters about them. History repeats 
itself. And whenever our American Sabbath is per- 
mitted to degenerate from its high and holy signifi- 
cance, and we break it down and trample over its 
ruins into the camp of the enemy, there is nothing 
in our modern progress, nor in earth, nor in heaven, 
to prevent, us from becoming a nation of heathenish 



40 



SA BBA TH SECULA RIZA TION. 



idolaters, subject to all the desolations that over- 
took the Hebrews. 

Wherefore, Remember the Sabbath Day to 
keep it holy," ''lest I come and smite the earth 
with a curse." 

Third — Another cause of Sabbath breaking is a 
misapprehension of the mission of the Sabbath. 
This mission is by far the most important to us of 
any portion of time. The other six days of the 
week are to be used in physical labor for the food 
we eat, the clothing- we wear, the homes we live 
in. In these days we are to ''labor and do all our 
work," but the seventh has a most merciful and 
mighty mission. It is the time when the body of 
man is to rest, recuperate, and so gain resiliency 
for future effort. It is a time when the mind of 
man is to have a complete change of occupation 
from the secular to the sacred, from the low to the 
lofty, from the sordid to the saving, from the 
contracting to the expanding, from the degrading 
to the elevating and ennobling forces of this life. 
The Sabbath, too, is the time especially and delib- 
erately set for the still loftier purpose of refining 
the spirit of man. This spirit, which is so sinful 
and so gross that Paul, who knew human nature 
well, and was also inspired by the Spirit of God, 
characterized it as " being filled with all unright- 
eousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, 
maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit. 



SABBA TH SECULARIZA TION. 



41 



malignity." And then, becoming more personal, 
he called the Gentiles whisperers, backbiters, 
haters of God ; despiteful, proud boasters, invent- 
ors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without 
understanding ; covenant breakers, without natural 
affection ; implacable, unmerciful." And of the 
Jews he also said : There is none righteous ; no, 
not one," and then writes a dark catalogue of 
crimes against them, which grew largely out of 
their imperfect knowledge of the mission of the 
Sabbath, which by its ministries is to lift man 
nearer God, and man nearer man. 

The mission of the Sabbath, then, is quite unique 
and peculiar. It is to give rest and recuperation 
to man's body and mind, 'tis true; but the highest, 
holiest, and most important function of the Sab- 
bath is to refine, exalt, inspire and cultivate man's 
spirit, till it is free from the weeds of woe, 
and full of "love, joy, peace, gentleness, good- 
ness, meekness, temperance, faith and charity." 
In other words, the mission of the Sabbath is 
to renovate, educate, illuminate and refine crude, 
gross, sinful human nature till in its sublimity 
it rises by the very law of spiritual coherence 
and affinity into perfect compatibility with the 
nature of the Lord God Almighty ; so as to be- 
come a crown jewel of Him in immortal youth, 
beauty and strength. 

Wherefore, " Remember the Sabbath Day to 



42 



SABBA TH SECULARIZA TION. 



keep it holy," " lest I come and smite the earth 
with a curse.'' 

Fourth — Another cause of the fracture of the 
Sabbath is the persistent vandalism of sensuous men. 
There are in these times, in this land, and in this 
city, many who wish to treat themselves and others 
as if they were only animals instead of men. They 
clamor for what only pleases for time, and in 
their effort to gain present pleasure forget their 
real nature and their God. They grow impatient 
of restraint, and decry all interference with their 
wishes as illiberal restrictions and infringements. 

" Thfey howl for freedom in their senseless mood, 
And still revolt when truth would set them free ; 
License, they mean, when they cry liberty." 

They want freedom for their physical nature, 
regardless of customs, laws and principles. They 
clamor for license, to get away from the loving 
designs God their Father has for them, and cry for 
secular recreations instead of Divine realizations. 
Sordid amusements that embase, instead of holy 
amusements that ennoble. Debauching dissipations 
that defile, degrade and damn, in place of those ex- 
alting aspirations that purify and enthrone. 

This I call the vandalistic use of the Sabbath. 
And the leaders of this vandahsm are not to the 
American manner born. They are, for the most 
part, adopted fellow citizens, Avho, when badly 



SABBA TH SECULARIZA TION. 



43 



enough off at home, came here and settled down. 
You opened your ports and privileges to them. 
You opened up your virgin soil, your factories, 
schools, superior business advantages, and your 
hard-earned, blood-bought governmental equities 
to them. You practically said : You, although 
foreign born, can have all the immunities and 
opportunities of our own people. You can have 
the liberty for which our fathers fought and died. 
You can have your full share of the blessings that 
have been won at the outlay of incalculable suffer- 
ing, blood and treasure. You can freely and fully 
have all the bonus and benefits of our code of 
equal and impartial laws. Over you shall wave the 
illuming stars and the protecting stripes. Before 
you lies the fertile soil ; around the possibilities of 
unprecedented success." 

They have accepted these proffered and liberal 
favors. They have thriven on them. They have 
grown numerous and rich, as Jacob in the house of 
Laban ; and, now, after all this, they turn round 
and claim the prostitution to their own secularizing 
practices of the most sacred institution we have in 
our land — the institution of the American Sabbath. 

They want to take this day, through whose min- 
istries this nation has been integrated; this day, 
solemnized and dignified by the memories of Sinai ; 
this day, sacred with the Sabbatic splendors of the 
Pilgrim Fathers ; this day, which has been em- 



44 



SABBA TH SECULARIZA TION. 



ployed in educating, inspiring and molding our 
people into the greatest homogeneous nation of 
patriots, philanthropists, philosophers and Chris- 
tians that is now or ever was on the planet. 

These men, of whatever name and of whatever 
nation makes now to me no difference, who work 
to deform this Christian Sabbath from a holy day 
into a holiday, from a sacred day into a sensuous 
day, from a praying day into a play day, from a 
praise day into a carousing day, from a divine day 
into a drinking day, I pronounce are the worst 
enemies of this Republic, and the vandals of mod- 
ern society, and baleful and barbaric Avill be the 
results if they are not driven back within the laws, 
where we and they belong. And if they will not 
go inside the laws of this commonwealth, why, in- 
stead of paltering for their votes, frame laws that 
will drive them from under the folds of our flag. 
This is my policy, because I believe that it is the 
diplomacy of God. [Amens and hallelujahs.] 

This Republic has the highest, widest mission 
ever delegated to any nation. This Republic is 
designated by heaven, in these later times, to rip 
up the old forms of human bondage that have been 
bandaging men all over the earth. This Republic, 
therefore, in heaven's name, must be kept invio- 
late. [Applause.] 

But history demonstrates and experience proves, 
that it cannot be so kept unless its Sabbaths are 



SABBA TH SECULARIZA TtON. 



45 



protected from desecration. This foul fiend of 
Sabbath desecration must be expatriated. [Am ens.] 
If not, it will stop our progress, spoil our civiliza- 
tion, de-Christianize our institutions, increase de- 
bauchery, augment drunkenness, devastate our 
churches, disrupt our government, and spread vice, 
crime and desolation on every hand, and will make 
us a by-word and a hissing before the eyes of all na- 
tions, and of the Almighty, forever. [God forbids.] 

Wherefore, " Remember the Sabbath Day to 
keep it holy," ^' lest I come and smite the earth 
with a curse." 

Fifth — Another cause of Sabbath breaking is the 
compromising spirit of time-serving apologists. 
[Voices — True, "] 

These, following the precepts of Frederick W. 
Robertson and the Roman Catholic Church in her 
practices, say : Let us compromise a little with the 
sinner; let us go half way with him, and change 
the Sabbath into a half holiday instead of an entire 
holy day. Throw the art galleries, the public 
libraries, the parks, the railroads, the steamboats, 
the museums, all open, and wink with the corner 
of your left eye if the saloons open a side or back 
door on Sunday. This is the plush-clad velvet 
claw which grows great with covered talons of 
venomous steel, and which, whenever the time 
comes, will strike out and tear the American Sab- 
bath to pieces. 



46 



SABBA TH SECULARIZA TIOiV. 



Why ? Because as when a lion gets a taste of 
blood his whole nature becomes voracious for g'ory 
victims, so when our rising race gets a few drops 
of the deceptive sweetness of Sabbath violation 
they will rush in and slaughter the entire day. 

But these semi-vandals of the Sabbath say our 
Saviour recognized the need of secularities on the 
Sabbath. The ox fallen into the pit may be lifted 
out; the beast in need of drink may be led to 
watering, and His own defence of His disciples 
shows that corn ears may be plucked and dis- 
lodged from their husks on Sunday. As for ox 
accidentally in the pit, no sane Sabbatarian would 
object to the merciful act of puUing him out. As for 
the watering of the stall-fed animals, every Chris- 
tian would on the Sabbath give them water. And 
as for the corn husking, the historic setting needs 
but to be understood to enable us to see it was an 
act of merciful necessity. The Saviour and His 
disciples were hungry from long fasting and weary 
with protracted toils around Capernaum. They 
were on their way to another town when a sense 
of famishing overtook them. To relieve their dire 
necessity, as David ate the shewbread, under stress 
of circumstances, they rubbed the corn heads in 
their hands and ate the kernels. But you will ob- 
serve the mission on which they were. Were they 
on a pleasure excursion ? Were they going to a 
musical fandango? Were they bound for a beer 



SABBA TH SECULARIZA TION. 



47 



garden carousal? Were they heading for a bac- 
chanalian scene of frolic, dissipation and revelry ? 
Nay, verily ; but on their way to the synagogue 
(church), where Jesus preached the Gospel in His 
love, and healed in His pity, a man who had a with- 
ered hand. Truly by this we get a key to the 
whole situation. The Sabbath, indeed, was for 
man. Aye, was man's healing day. It was to be 
man's restoration day. It was to be the day set 
apart for his leisure, his culture, his education, his 
inspiration. It was to be the day for good works, 
for good places, for great glories. 

It was to be the day when the strong might help 
the weak, the rich the poor, the virtuous the 
vicious. It was to be the day when that divine 
love that floods the universe and pours itself out 
in healing balm upon the open wounds of a bleed- 
ing world should be recognized, and appreciated, 
and appropriated. [Amens, hallelujahs and glories 
over the house.] 

It was to be the day when the sacred teachers sent 
by God should stand up in their holy places and 
teach, and impress, and inspire the multitudes of 
the sinful, careworn and needy. It was to be the day 
when the masses would lay down their burdens 
and come, free from care and fear, and commune 
with the truth and with the intelligent fountain of 
benevolence and love, till they, breaking out into a 
jubilee of song, should be lifted up into spiritual 



48 



SABBA TH SECULARIZA TION. 



exultation. It was to be a day in which the life 
and l(*ve of God should become so regnant in the 
masses of human souls that they would swell with 
joy divine and need no other comforter. In a 
word, it was to be a day in which mankind were to 
break away from the woes of earth and lay hold of 
the joys of Heaven. [Hallelujahs.] Thus the Sab- 
bath was made for man, and not man for the 
Sabbath. 

Wherefore, " Remember the Sabbath Day to 
keep it holy," lest I come and smite the earth 
with a curse." 

There is just one more cause of the prevalence 
of Sabbath breaking in these times I shall mention. 
That is the effeminate and apologetic way in 
which some ministers preach on the subject, and the 
shabby, evasive way in which others avoid it. Such 
watchmen are over politic and under polemic, over 
diplomatic and under heroic. They might offend 
some half Sabbath breaker ; they might displease 
some rich or influential Sabbath desecrating ofiicial, 
and so they sound tiny whistles, when they ought to 
blow rams horns, and fill the world with the sound 
of trumpets. Ezekiel was troubled for want of 
these in his day : 

1. Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 

2. Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say 
unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of 
the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watch- 
man ; 



SABBA TH SECULARIZA TION. 



49 



3. If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow 
the trumpet, and warn the people ; 

4. Then, whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and 
taketh not warning ; if the sword come and take him away, his 
blood shall be upon his own head. 

5. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warn- 
ing ; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning 
shall deliver his soul. 

6. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not 
the trumpet, and the people be not warned ; if the sword come 
and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his 
iniquity ; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand. 

7. So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman 
unto the house of Israel ; therefore thou shalt hear the word at 
my mouth, and warn them from me. 

8. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt 
surely die ; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his 
way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity ; but his blood will 
I require at thine hand. 

9. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn 
from it ; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his 
iniquity ; but thou hast delivered thy soul. 

Away then, with all this mincing, man-fearing 
spirit. Away, eternally away, with every policy 
that would muzzle you as a messenger of God. 

Sinai is behind you ; let it again thunder through 
you. Jehovah is within you ; let His lightnings 
play from your eyes, your hands, your feet, your 
voice, until as full a blaze of glory flames in your 
pulpit from your presence as flamed from the face 
of Moses when he came clown from the mount 
with the Law. [ Aniens many.] Then, when with 



SABBATH SECULARIZATION 



commanding mien you exclaim : Remember the 
Sabbath Day to keep it holy," the people will heed 
and obey, lest Jehovah come again " and smite the 
earth with a curse." 

11. — But little time is left me to treat of the curses 
that follow Sabbath breaking. They are many 
and great. Sabbath Prostitution is the old Virago 
of all the ages. I see her, with bleared eye and 
cracked voice, rise up among the nations, and 
gradually grow grimy and gray ; grimy with the 
blood of her victims, gray with the weight of her 
woes. Her mouth is full of cursing and bitter- 
ness ; she pours forth ignorance like a flood, and 
vice like a sea. Her course is marked with a trail 
of poverty, tears, blood, agony and death. Her alli- 
ance is with the Devil, and her commission is to go 
forth and slaughter the King's innocents on every 
hand. She is to do this by making vice pleasing, 
the saloon attractive, the beer garden inviting, the 
secular Sunday concert classical and grand. She 
has room for the millions ; room for all. Wherever 
she is admitted the bugles of the Church sound 
everywhere a retreat. Retreat at home, retreat 
abroad. Retreat for the unite, retreat for the 
aggregate. Retreat down the declivities of a pleas- 
ure park toward the Styx of damnation. She has 
curses for every person and every thing that is good 
She has curses for the Church and curses for the 
Sunday-school. She has curses for the honest min 



SA BBA TH SE CULA RIZA TION: 



51 



ister and the faithful member. She has curses for 
the prayer meeting- and the praise meeting. She 
has curses for the class meeting and the Ep worth 
League. She has curses for the Word of God and 
the upright sermon. She has curses for the mis- 
sionary societies, and all benevolent and philan- 
thropic societies. Let her loose and she will pull 
down our church spires, demolish our cathedrals, 
desolate our colleges, ruin our public schools. 
Let her loose, and she will break up our charities, 
overturn our philanthropies and damn our human- 
ities. Give her full sway, and she will pollute that 
part of our press she has not already polluted ; she 
will invade our Senate halls, climb up the walls 
and tear down our Capitol. Let her have full 
swing, and she will sterilize our fields, curtail our 
commerce, paralyze our trade, stifle our improve- 
ments, strangle our industries. Give her her way, 
and she will fill the land with poverty, lamenta- 
tion, and mourning, and woe,'' and the earth will 
have all its healing wounds opened afresh. 

Oh, my God, we want to have a funeral, and we 
want the corpse to be this Sabbath Prostitute. 
[Amens and hallelujahs.] Dig deep and wide the 
grave, ye men of God. Make secure the ready 
coffin ; and now, ye undertakers of the Church, 
put her in. Come, ye pall-bearers of the Lord, 
bear her not to any cemetery on earth, but bear 
her to the rim of the earth and throw her off. 



52 



SA B BA TH SE C ULA RIZA TION. 



[Amens and great sensation.] Down let her 
fall ten hundred million miles and twice ten 
hundred more, till she plunges into the red 
billows of the bottomless pit, and sends splashes 
of fire and brimstone against the roof of hell. 
[V olleys of amens.] There let her lie ; till this 
world, including our German brethren, through 
Sabbath keeping shall have been redeemed, and 
taken home to that delightsome land where 

" Congregations ne'er break up 
And Sabbath has no end." 

" Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy " 
here, if you would acquire the real homogeneity 
for enjojdng its eternal antitype hereafter. 

Amens. 



Sabbath Spiritualization. 



Sunday Evening, July 26, 1891. 



Isaiah Iviii, 13-14. — "If thou turn away thy foot from (trampling 
on) the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, 
and call the Sabbath a delight ; the holy of the Lord, hon- 
ourable ; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, 
nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own 
(worldly) words : Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; 
and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the 
earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; 
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 



N last Lord's night I spoke to you on the 



Causes and Curses of Sabbath Seculariza- 
tion. To-night I shall present to you the manner 
and blessing of Sabbath Spiritualization. 

First, then, the manner in which we are to keep 
the Sabbath. This is portrayed in our text. Hold 
back — "turn away thy foot" — from trampling on 
the Sabbath. It is sacred. Feet walking on secu- 
lar errands ; feet carrying on worldly business ; 
feet running for personal amusement ; feet flying 
for scenes of revelry and dissipation, are to be 
kept off the holy hours of the Sabbath. When we 
are tempted by example, by impulse, by interest, 




SABBA TH SPIRITUALIZA TION. 



or by anything else under heaven to desecrate the 
Sabbath on any of these or kindred errands, we 
are to stop, hold back, and turn ourselves in the 
opposite direction, find more exalted and spiritual 
business, and so turn away our feet from treading 
down the Sabbath." 

The manner in which the day is to be spiritual- 
ized by us is seen furthermore in the next clause : 
From doing thy pleasure on my holy day." This 
means worldly pleasure, of course. The pleasures 
of the dance, the saloon, the theatre, the ball match, 
the excursion, the beer garden, the gaming table, 
the convivial carousal, the business pursuit. These, 
and many more are included in thy pleasure." 
From them and all their kin we are on God's day 
to turn away — as from the thunder of a Vesuvius 
or the crash of a Niagara. 

The manner in which we are to keep the Sabbath 
is further seen in the words "And call the Sabbath 
a delight." It is to be no irksome, dull, monoto- 
nous day. It is to be no sad, somber, plaintive 
time. It is not to be a time of restless ennui"; a 
period whose hours drag oppressively along. It 
is to be by us made a delightsome day, the most 
delightful by far of all the week, the most precious 
and rapturous of all the seven. Those who must 
needs " thrust their necks into a yoke, wear the 
print of it and sigh away Sundays," miss the sweet 
and subtle spell, the holy thoughtful calm that 



SABBATH SPIRITUALIZATION. 55 

a truly-kept Sabbath weaves within the souls 
who know how to keep Sunday. These make it a 
delight." They make it a delight by reflecting 
on all the goodness of their Heavenly Father till 
breaking out with bliss-swelling spirits they sing, 
meditating on his marvelous goodness. 

" Bless the Lord, Oh my soul, 
And forget not all His benefits," etc. 

They further make it a delight by con- 
templating the glories and graces of nature, 
the majesty and magnificence of law, the sweep 
and strength and sweetness of Scripture, the 
evident fitness of praise, the glorious privileges of 
prayer, and the illustrious opportunities of hearing 
and seeing the divinely appointed and inspired 
messengers of God. 

It was some such appreciative contemplation as 
this which led Longfellow in his Christus to ex- 
claim : 

" O day of rest, how beautiful, how fair, 
How welcome to the weary and the old, 
Day of the Lord and truce to earthly care, 
Day of the Lord as all our days should be." 

Then too it may be made a great delight by 
the opportunities its holy hours afford for doing 



56 SABBATH SPIRITUALIZATION. 

good to those who need. To a soul that has 
caught march with the evolution God, this is the 
greatest luxury of all. Teaching some budding 
mind how to leaf and blossom. Some eager, 
passionate heart what and how to feel. Some 
wandering wild life how to return to the Father's 
fold. Some orphaned outcast how to come back 
to an all endearing love. These and similar 
activities bring us into the majestic sweep and 
trend of our Master's principal purpose. A 
Master omnipotent, whose prime purpose in this 
universe is to pardon, purify, instruct, inspire and 
mold the children of men until they become fit to 
be the children of God. The enrapt Sabbath- 
keeper sympathetically sings with Henry Carey : 

" Of all the days that's in the week 
I dearly love but one day, 
And that's the day that comes betwixt 
A Saturday and Monday." 

Another way we are to spiritualize the Sabbath 
according to our text is by honoring the Lord in 
honoring its holy laws. 

''And call the Sabbath the holy of the Lord 
honorable, and shall honor it." The Sabbath is an 
arc of time which God himself has sanctified for 
the purpose of being felt and seen. This is its 
primordial and final design. By honoring this 
sacred time we acknowledge and honor Him. It 



SABBA TH SPIRITUALIZA TION. 



is like an observatory, in which the telescope is hung. 
That telescope would be useless without the struc- 
tural setting of the architect. The sacred Sabbath 
hours are the time-setting of the revealing word of 
God, and that word is He. The proof of this is 
seen in the fact that where there is no Sabbath 
there is no authentic revelation. The Parsee has 
his Avesta, the Brahman his Veda, and the Budd- 
hist his Dharma, but they are all at best but grop- 
ings- after Deity. The Christian, however, has his 
Bible and it comes with such an authoritative and 
objective presentation of the Almighty in His 
natural and moral attributes, that while looking 
through its pages as through focussed lenses, the 
honest spiritual soul perceives the awful, yet loving 
outline of its Lord. It is by honoring the Sabbath 
in reading, hearing, believing and obeying this 
word that this universal Lord comes near to human 
nature and transforming it, embraces it as an 
Almighty Father. [Amens.] It is this close rela- 
tion between the day of God, and the word of God 
and the word of God and the Lord, that makes the 
spiritualization of the Sabbath of such momentous 
import to the human race. The man who lifts his 
hand to war upon the Sabbath, lifts it up also to 
attack the word. The man who raises his voice 
against the word raises it against the Lord. The 
three are indissolubly joined by Jehovah — what 
He has joined together let no man dare to sunder. 



58 SABBATH SPIRlTUALIZATION. 



Desecrate the day, bury the word, and we 
shroud God from the world and are back to 
barbarism as bleak as that which blights either 
China or Japan. Honor the Lord in the day by 
doing the will of the word, which is God, and our 
march is forward till this earth rolls in an atmos- 
phere of heavenly sweetness and glows like a globe 
of holy light. [Hallelujahs.] 

It is by thus honoring the Lord on the day by 
the word that we are elevated to such a rapture 
and character that we find it pleasant to observe 
the concluding part of the manner of keeping the 
Sabbath expressed in our text : Not doing thine 
own ways nor finding thine own pleasure nor 
speaking thine own (secular) words." 

To persons who live on a low spiritual plane 
such deprivations as these are meaningless and 
insipid and even repellant. 

To persons who keep the Sabbath from mere 
family custom, who have at best but blunt spiritual 
perceptions, made still duller by ever increasing 
deteriorations, the import of such commands are 
utterly unintelligible. Such disintegrating form- 
alists 

" Eat and drink and scheme and plan, 
And go to church on Sunday, 
And are so}?ieuihat afraid of God, 
But more of Mrs. Grundy." 

But to persons in an exalted and thorough state 



SABBATH SPIRITUALIZATION. 



59 



of consecration these words come welcome as the 
bugle notes of battle to the impatient warrior. 
Such warrior cheerfully exclaims: My "own ways" 
I forsake, my own pleasures " I resign, my " own 
words" I abandon for infinitely better, ''for Thine, 
for Thine.'' To such there is a charmful beauty in 
the poetic imagery of Charles Swain when he sings 
in Sabbath Chimes." 

" There's music in the morning air, 

A holy voice and sweet, 
Far calling to the house of prayer, 

The humblest peasant's feet. 
From hill and dale and distant moor, 

Long as the chime is heard, 
Each cottage sends its tenants poor, 

For God's enriching word. 

The warrior from his armed tent. 

The seaman from his tide. 
Far as the Sabbath chimes are sent 

In Christian nations wide. 
Thousands and tens of thousands bring 

Their sorrows to his shrine, 
And taste the never failing spring 

Of Jesus love divine." 

Having seen we are to keep the Sabbath by 
turning from selfish and secular pursuits and 
pleasures by making it a day of holy delights and 
honorable joys, we next come to examine the 
blessings of such Sabbath spiritualization. 

These blessings are exceedingly suitable, minute 



6o 



SABBA TH SPIRITUALIZA TION. 



and extensive. The promise accorded in the text 
to those who attain to this real manner of Sabbath 
keeping is most cheering. 

" Then shalt thou deUght thyself in the Lord, 
and I (God) will cause thee to ride upon the high 
places of the earth and feed thee with the heritage 
of Jacob thy father ; for the mouth of the Lord 
hath spoken it." 

I — There are blessings here for the individual. The 
unit of society needs and wants to be blessed. As 
social factors of the great fabric of human integra- 
tion, we need blessings so as to fill well our 
appointed place in the great ever evolving organism. 

As the units are, so will the composite be. This 
is a law no integration can subvert. God, there- 
fore, proposes to bless us by the proper use of the 
holy day as composite factors of society, first 
singly, then as a whole. There are many springs 
of blessings, no doubt, and they are all to be 
used in their places. There is physical culture, 
educational development, artistic acquirement, 
scientific attainment, humanitarian excellence, 
philosophic achievement, logical acumen, patriotic 
zeal, moral rectitude and polite urbanit}^ These 
are all blessings of which every person should if 
possible be possessed. But though they are all 
valuable and important, yet apart from the 
inspirational element they are comparatively 
valueless. This inspirational force which being 



SABBA TH SPIRITUALIZA TION. 



6i 



personally absorbed diffuses itself through the 
whole gambit of personal attainments and utilizes 
and conserves them, is promised to such an 
extent as to be delightsome. 

" Then shall thou delight thyself in the Lord.'' 
When ? When thou callest the Sabbath a delight 
by spiritualizing it. This delight in the Lord All- 
Loving and Almighty, is the loftiest attainment 
offered anywhere to man. But money cannot buy 
it, position cannot claim it, learning may be void 
of it, moral excellence cannot acquire it, and no 
natural or acquired quality in man can attain unto 
it except that self-sacrificing, self-denying element 
which comes forth before the Lord and cries : Thy 
Sabbaths I will keep." Why should obedience to 
this command, " Remember the Sabbath day to keep 
it holy," so far outstrip all others, even of the deca- 
logue, in importance. Because by its observance 
a disposition to keep all the other commands is 
acquired and developed. Because it is the Divine 
insulator for man. We have seen bodies to be 
charged with electricity insulated from sordid sub- 
stances by glass lest the electric element should 
escape the object to be electrified. Li like manner 
man must be insulated from the gross things of the 
world before he can experience the divine electriza- 
tion. The Sabbath is the Time Lisulator. The 
All-Loving and All- Wise has chosen it with which 



4 



62 



SA BBA TH SPIRI T UALlZA TION 



to elevate man so high that he is capable of divine 
receptions and delights. [Hallelujah.] 

Two men show the antipodal results. One of 
these when Saturday evening comes prepares for 
a gala day on Sunday. He packs his purse with 
wages his family should have. He rises early, eats 
and hies away without thought of good or God, to 
meet his boon companions, bound for the revel or 
excursion, or some similar recreation. The eating, 
drinking, joking, story telling, swearing and lying, 
are abundant. The joviality of the men is en- 
hanced by intoxicating fluid. His thoughts, feel- 
ings, motives and emotions are all of the earth 
earthy.'' He returns at night a weary, impover- 
ished, fretted, half or ^vhoUy drunken man and 
requires a day or two of special care before he is 
himself again. Such a man may spend a thousand 
such Sabbaths and each one makes him worse than 
he was before, till finally he becomes only fit to be 

punished w^th everlasting destruction from the 
presence of the Lord, and the glory of His power." 

He has infracted and polluted the Time insulator 
and it has become a curse to him instead of 
a blessing. 

But here is another man who, when Saturday 
evening comes, begins to prepare for the Sab- 
bath. He bids adieu to worldly care. His 
mellow mind contemplates the approach of the 
Holy day with the tranquility of a happy hope. 



SA B BA TH SPIRI T UA LIZA TION. 



63 



The sweet Sabbath dawn stirs within him holy 
texts and hymns of love and praise. His mental 
mood is molded by the serenity of delightful 
meditation on the word and works, the laws and 
the love of God. The hours fly sweetly by and find 
him still in the happiest of moods He is delighting 
himself in the Lord. He lives and breathes in the 
Ever-Living and All-Loving One. So sacred, so 
sweet, so strong are his thoughts and feelings of 
fidelity to Him that he has no time, no desire to let 
the trudging and defiling train of worldly thought 
or sentiment enter his being. He spiritualizes 
the Sabbath by sanctifying himself to its sacred 
insulating design. He shuts out the distracting 
world. He shuts in the becalming God. His life 
warms. His affections burn. His admiration 
kindles. His delight knows no bounds as he com- 
munes with and contemplates his Father's person 
with all its glorious attributes of wisdom, justice, 
truth, power and love, and his Father's domain, of 
which by filial homogeneity he has become an 
heir. The night comes on and as wending his 
way from church, he looks up at the girdling 
galaxies of glorious and innumerable worlds, he 
delights in the fact that his Father made them all. 
Thus to rest he goes, having woven into his life 
new patterns of loveliness, by fresh thoughts and 
frequent baptisQis, till finally having been fitted by 
frequent fidelities and conformations, he is taken 



64 



SA BBA TH SPIRI T UA LIZA TION. 



home above the stars to " glory, honor, immortality 
and eternal life." [Praise the Lord.] 

Surely then Sabbath spiritualization is the great- 
est blessing to the individual, since it enables him 
to delight himself in the Lord and ride upon the 
high places of earth to heaven. 

II — I further affirm that Sabbath spiritual- 
ization is the greatest blessing that can come 
to the family. Indeed, the Christian Sab- 
bath has been one of the great factors that 
has formed family life. The promiscuity of 
primitive peoples for long Avild ages was far and 
wide diffused. The exogamy of the clans suc- 
ceeded sometimes in establishing a little more 
humanity, such as was involved in the the treat- 
ment of the wife as a captured chattel and cherished 
booty.' Endogamy or marriage within the tribe 
was a step still farther forward in the socialistic 
tendency toward a better state of things. Polyan- 
dry, too, was practiced in several quarters of the 
world as a strange convenience. Simultaneously 
with these sad socialistic relations, polj^gamy pre- 
vailed in all nations. Even the Hebrews were not 
exempt from its distresses and corrup^tions. But 
when the Christ came and the Christian Sabbath 
Avas instituted ; and the doctrines of monogamy, 
caught up from the lips of the Christ, rang from 
the tongues of Apostolic orators, then monogam}-, 
the flower and the fruit of all other socialistic forms 



RABBATH SPIRirUALIZATION-. 



('S 



began to take on vitality and coherence, and so 
during the last 1800 years has been lifting our race 
to the highest phase of social development yet dis- 
covered, or discoverable. This latest and best 
form of sexual relationship was not only born of 
Christianity, but it is to the utmost fostered by the 
sacred influences of a well kept Sabbath day. 
The tendency of Sabbath violation is toward family 
dissipation and disruption. The tendency of Sab- 
bath spiritualization is toward family purity and 
coherence. Indeed it may be said that to find 
true types of monogamic family life, we are 
confined by facts to Christendom. The other 
peoples of mankind retain most of the barbaric 
abuses of the family relation. Women still are 
disfranchised and depressed, children treated with 
cruelty and passionate rigor, and even infanticide 
is practiced Avith legal impunity in many parts. 

As a rule there is no noble family life where the 
Sabbath is violated. But where it is kept sacredly 
the nobility and inviolate sacredness of the family 
relation are conspicuous features of society. 

Observe how the Sabbath is made a blessing to 
the family. The father who has for six days been 
toiling is now free from drudgery, at home. The 
mother feels a weight of responsibility lifted Irom 
her heart because he is there. The children climb 
his knees, the envied kiss to share." The beauty 
of fatherhood, the glory of motherhood and the 



66 



SABBA TH SPIRITUALIZA TION. 



promise of childhood all garland with -strength 
and sweetness, the little band. Mutual respect, 
love and admiration are prevalent. The feeling 
with each is : 

" Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 
Be it ever so humble there's no place like home. 
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there. 
Which seek through the world is ne'er met with elsewhere. " 

This is the natural sentiment that accompanies a 
pure home life, but when we come to add the 
spiritual feelings, then the spectacle becomes sub- 
lime. These feelings the Sabbath gives the best 
opportunity of planting and maturing. The close 
relations into which the members of the household 
are drawn, the teachings of the father, the love 
of the mother, the responsiveness of the children, 
all coalesce to make a divine group through the 
ministrations of a divine day. 

Thus the hours sweetly pass, each leaving some 
brilliant precipitant of truth or grace in the units 
of the home, till finally the evening shades prevail. 
A quiet, peaceful, restful charm abides on everj^ 
heart. The father, who is still in a sense the 
high priest of the Sabbatic circle, prepares his mind 
for leading his little band to the throne of grace. 
The mother encourages this seemly and important 
service by patient queenhness and helping love. 



SABBATH SPIRITUALIZATION. 



67 



The scene is set forth with inimitable beauty by 
the popular Scottish bard : 

" The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face 

They round the ingle form a circle wide ; 
The sire turns o'er wi' patriarchal grace 

The big ha-bible, once his father's pride. 

His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, 
His lyart haffets wearin' thin and bare 

These strains that once did sweet in Zion glide. 
He wales a portion with judicious care. 
And ' Let us worship God,' he says with solemn air. 

" They chant their artless notes in simple guise, 

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim ; 
Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise ; 

Or plaintive martyrs, worthy o' the name ; 

Or noble Elgin beets the heavenward flame — 
The sweetest far o' Scotia's holy lays ; 

Compared with these, Italian trills are tame, 
The tickled ears np heartfelt rapture raise, 
Nae unison ha'e they wi' our Creator's praise. 

" The priest-like father rends the sacred page : 

How Abraham was the friend of God on high ; 
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage 

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 

Or how the royal bard did groaning lie 
Beneath the stroke of heaven's avenging ire ; 

Or Job's pathetic plaint and wailing cry ; 
Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire ; 
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 

" Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme : 

How guiltless blood for goilty man was shed ; 



68 



SABBA TH SPIRITUALIZA TION. 



How he who bore in heaven the sacred name 
Had not on earth whereon to lay His head ; 
How His first followers and servants sped 

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land ; 
How he who lone on Patmos banished 

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, 

And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced 
by heaven's command. 

" Then, kneeling down to heaven's Eternal King, 
The saint, the father, and the husband prays ; 

Hope ' springs exulting on triumphant wing,' 
That thus they all may meet in future days, 

No more to sigh or raise the bitter tear ; 
Together hymning their Creator's praise, 

In such society, yet still more dear, 

While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere." 
[Hallelujahs.] 

Thus, by spiritua,lizing the Sabbath, '^They de- 
light themselves in the Lord, and He causes them 
to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feeds 
them with the heritage of Jacob their father ; for 
the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 

Again, I announce that Sabbath spiritualization 
is the greatest blessing of the Church. Mone}^, 
influence, eloquence, music, ritual, learning, all 
depend upon it for success. When these spirit- 
ualized families gather into the larger assembly, 
how blissful and powerful that assembly becomes. 
Bte-vitalize the unit and you de-vitalize the family. 
De-vitalize the families and you de-vitalize the 



SABBA TH SPIRITUALIZA TION. 



69 ^ 



Church. But when the smaller family groups 
come together, all radiant with joy and hope, faith 
and love, how easy and how beautiful are preach- 
ing, prayer and praise. 

The whole church is at once afloat, bathing in 
glory, swimming in bliss. The minister himself 
feels the uplifting power, and inspiring spell of the 
congregated factors around him. His mind and 
heart, already aflame with truth, now catch new 
torches of light, fresh forces of love ; and like a 
workman who needeth not to be ashamed, rightly 
dividing the word of truth, he easily goes into 
the treasure house and brings forth things both 
new and old." The vast congregation catches 
again the reflex of its own flame and rises, stage 
by stage, to truth after truth, and grace upon 
grace, till the presence of the Lord is as sensibly 
felt as when it shook Sinai, filled Solomon's tem- 
ple, or swept with a storm of delight the souls 
of men at Pentecost. [Chorus of hallelujahs.] 

Where is the Sabbath spiritualizing community 
that does not now enjoy such superior glories? 
And everything else is made rapturous by the 
exalted unity and love of such experiences. It is 
delightful to conduct such church services ; it is 
delightful to enjoy them. It is delightful to con- 
duct the Sunday-school. It is delightful to manage 
the finance. It is delightful to assemble in the 
weekly prayer meeting. It is delightful to come 



SA BBA TH SPIRI T UA LIZA TION. 



together in the love feast and class. It is delight- 
ful to carry such recollections and inspirations 
through the hours of the work-day world. 
[Amens.] 

Truly to such Sabbath keepers God fulfills his 
promise. Then shalt thou delight thyself in the 
Lord, and I will make thee to ride upon the high 
places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage 
of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord 
hath spoken it." 

Again, I proclaim that Sabbath spiritualization 
is the best blessing of the State. It has been my 
good fortune to travel in many lands on all the 
continents of the globe. While doing so I kept 
my eye steadily on this particular subject. I every- 
where observed the accompaniments of, and effects 
produced by the non-Sabbatic nations, the semi- 
Sabbatic and the wholly Sabbatic peoples. In the 
non-Sabbatic nations I found humanity in its most 
baleful, fierce and deplorable state — wretched be- 
yond expression ; stagnant, repulsive, fiendish, and 
abominable. Instance the aborigines of New Zea- 
land, the black fellows of Australia, the Malayans 
of the Eastern Archipelago ; the Chinese, who are 
civilized by Confucius and religionized by Laotze 
and Gautama ; the Japanese, who are civilized by 
Buddhism and religionized somewhat by Shinto- 
ism ; the Hindoos, who are civilized by the Brah- 
mans, and are being now evangelized by Chris- 



SABBA TH SPIRITUALIZA TtON'. 



71 



tianity. All these and many other Sabbathless 
peoples whom I have visited, are exclusive, cruel, 
unfraternal, unprogressive and debased beyond all 
conception, much less expression. 

As we come westward, the first semi-Sabbatic 
people we meet are the Mohammedans, who keep 
Friday, instead of Sunday. Then the Greeks, 
the Italians, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the 
French and the Germans, all of whom, largely 
through the laxity and indulgence of the papacy, 
are semi-Sabbatic nations. If you go to church in 
the morning and keep Sunday till twelve o'clock 
you may play fiddle, dance, drink and dissipate all 
the rest of the day, and be a good Christian. Let- 
ting down the gates so far has deluged continental 
Europe so much with Sabbath desecration that in 
many places few people aim at keeping any part of 
the sacred day. 

Now, if Sabbath secularization be a natural and 
good thing, and if semi-Sabbatic secularization be a 
better thing, as is claimed by the Roman Catholic 
clergy and by the European vandal immigrants, 
why has no nation that has adopted either the one 
or the other as its custom leaped to the front and 
became the leading nation of the earth ? And it is 
a notorious fact, well worthy of the stateman's 
study, as it is worthy of every man's attention, 
that since Christianity was born no Sabbathless 
nation, and no semi-Sabbatic nation has come for- 



72 



SABBA TH SPIRITUALIZA TION. 



ward in commercial, in educational, in financial, in 
progressive splendor and potenc}^, and become the 
acknowledged leader of all the other nations of the 
earth. 

There are but two nations on the earth to-da}^ 
that aim at wholly Sabbatic spiritualization. These 
are Great Britain and the United States of Ameri- 
ca. And is it not a striking fact, that when we 
come to look for commercial supremacy, educa- 
tional supremacy, industrial supremac}', mechanical 
supremacy, financial supremacy, naval and military 
supremacy, philanthropic, patriotic and progressive 
supremac}', we have to tarn to some one of these 
whoU}' Sabbatic nations ? The great leading forces 
that are molding the present and mapping out the 
future, are not preeminent in any of the semi-Sab- 
batic or non- Sabbatic nations. And is not this proof 
patent to the reasoning faculties of an}' sane mind 
of the fact, that the wholly spiritualized Sabbath is 
better for nations than a half-kept Sabbath ? As, of 
course, I will acknowledge that a half-sanctified 
Sabbath is better than no Sabbath at all. 

And is it not presumptive proof — aye, more ; 
demonstrative proof — that God is still working the 
world toward its goal through the spiritualization 
of His day, and that the nations who keep it as He 
directs " shall delight themselves in the Lord," and 
that He does cause ''them to ride upon the high 
places of the earth," and does "feed them with the 



SA BBA TH SPIRI T UA LIZA TION. 



73 



heritag-e of Jacob"? (which was to be an ever- 
augmenting heritage); ^' for the mouth of the 
Lord hath spoken it." 

I need not now detain you to show the relation 
of Sabbath keeping to persona] hberty, to the uni- 
versal extension of the franchise in this and other 
lands, although the task would be an easy and an 
interesting one ; nor need I detain you to describe 
how the bleeding wounds of this erring world can 
only be stanched and healed by Sabbatic minis- 
tries, and how human bondage can be broken, and 
human woe assuaged alone by the sacred setting 
apart of one-seventh of time for the purpose. Nor 
need I keep you on this warm Summer night in 
this immense audience to portray to you the glories 
that at death shall break upon the ecstatic vision 
of the sons and daughters of God, who have stood 
bravely forth against the tides of infidelity, that 
now threaten to engulf our American Chris- 
tian Sabbath. 

If God were not over the floods, amid the 
shadows, keeping watch-guard o'er His own, we 
might reasonably despair. But He is there, and 
there to stay, till the arrows of His light have smit- 
ten to the dust every hand and head lifted against 
His day, and till all the people of this earth shall 
delight in the Lord and ride on the high places, 
first of earth and then of heaven. O Sabbath day ! 
sweet queen of time. Behold her ! She has come 



SABBA TH SPIRITUALIZA TIOA\ 



down the centuries with voices pure and sweet, 
face and form angelic and beautiful. She with 
seraphic hand has strewn the ages with clusters of 
human graces and celestial hopes. She shines in 
thousands of pulpits beside the messengers of God, 
wafting their glad tidings of redemption to myriads 
of despoiled and sin-sold souls. [Showers of 
Amens.] 

She pillows on her bosom the fevered brain of 
the student young, and draws the coy and gentle 
maiden up to noblest life. She blesses the stalwart 
man, bearing his weight of woes, and shows him 
he may cast his heavy burdens on the Lord. 
[Hallelujah.] 

She smooths the ruffled brow of careworn age, 
and strokes with virgin palm the hairs all hoary 
grown; she blesses the dying sick and with up- 
lifted finger rends the veil of gloom that hangs 
between here and home, and bids the departing 
view the glories of the other shore. She pours 
balm over the poor man's brow and rest over his 
weary heart and limbs. 

She grasps the fretted steed of the work- day 
world and bandages up its bruises, and washes 
away its swelter and its foam. She inspires the 
lover of his race to visit the cottages of the for- 
saken and turns him into a ministering angel to 
the sick and poor. She has visited millions of 
mankind and gives them a code of honor which 
higher is than law. 



SABBA TH SPIRITUALIZA TION. 



75 



She enters barbaric lands, stacks the bloody 
spear and stays the red rivulets of savage gore. 
[Praise the Lord.] She marches forward with 
gracious step into landscape, villa, town and city, 
and makes the hearts of millions glad by the 
music of church bells and ascending psalm. 
Thus she blesses this wearied, stricken world; and 
who shall recall her from her high mission of help ? 
Who shall dare pollute her unsullied robes? 
Where is the man that shall dare insult her by 
trampling on one of her sacred hours ? Where 
are the men that arrogantly presume to debauch 
and defile one moment of her sacred time? 
Paralyzed be the foot that shall tread on her. 
Withered be the hand that shall stretch itself out 
against her. Consumed be the eye that shall cor- 
rupt her ; torn out by the root be the tongue that 
shall speak against her, and damned must be the 
soul that spurns her services of love. Go on then, 
thou sweet Queen of heaven, go ; sent out of 
eternity from the everlasting Father, by the 
Redeeming Son. Go on scattering weekly thy 
blessing over every land. [Amens, many.] Go 
on blessing persons, families, churches, nations, 
with thy heavenly, refining, spiritualizing joys. 

A hundred million Christian voices, a hundred 
million Christian hearts from all parts of this 
redeemed world join mine to-night in saying, go 



76 



SABBA TH SPIRITUALIZA TION. 



on, stately, silent, pure, in thy heavenly mission 
till the belated sons of this great transitional 
century, shall, re-born, flood thy hours with redemp- 
tion songs. Go on, till thy clear, clean, crystal 
moments shall be used by all human eyes to look 
at Him thou dost enshrine. Then shall all man- 
kind delight themselves in God and ''ride upon the 
high places of the earth" to the higher places of 
the heavens. [Many Amens.] 



The Sabbatarian Prince. 



Sunday Morning, July 26, 1891. 

Mark ii, 28 — "Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the 
Sabbath." 

IF the Son of Man were Lord only of the Sabbath 
His Lordship would be of little account to us. 
But it is because He is "Lord also" of the Sabbath 
this declaration from His own lips becomes of in- 
finite import to every thoughtful mind. 

It is His Lordship over the great internal and 
external factors of all being that gives infinite and 
focussed force to his declaration of Lordship over 
the Sabbath. 

In order that we may see the pith and point of 
this, look at the commanding supremacy mighty 
men achieve, when it is known they have immense 
personal resources and demonstrated practical abil- 
ity accorded them. 

To illustrate — When a great man towers up 
above his fellows afar and leads them on to treas- 
ures and triumph, there is a sense in which he be- 
comes to them sovereign. 



78 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



When Alexander the Great rose like a military 
flame, conquering all before him at Issus, Granicus 
and Arbela, and leading on his troops to oriental 
riches, he became prince of commanders to the 
Greeks. 

When Julius Cassar rose like a lustrous star, sub- 
duing the brawny hordes of Belgia, Gaul and Brit- 
ain ; crossing the Alps and the Rubicon, leading 
his cohorts down upon the rich Italian plains, he 
became kingly to his soldiery. 

And when Napoleon of Corsica rose like an en- 
sanguined sun bathing in the blood of nations, ris- 
ing in resplendence over Montenote, Rivoli and 
Lodi; glowing with a dazzling brilliancy round 
Marengo, Austerlitz and Jena, and raising France 
to unequalled military splendor, he became all 
commanding to his countrymen. 

And so when the Chieftain of the armies of 
heaven sped from His high command down to this 
realm of sin and shame, assumed humanity by His 
birth in Bethlehem, evinced divinity by His life in 
Palestine, atoned for sin by His death on Calvary, 
conquered death by His resurrection from Joseph's 
tomb, opened heaven by His victorious entrance 
into paradise, and clove by the cleavage of His own 
right-hand, a course to eternal conquest to every 
obedient son of Adam. Thus in a higher, deeper, 
broader sense does He become kingly to His 
followers. Let us seek a comprehensive view of 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



79 



this most illustrious Sabbatic Prince, for none have 
every truly seen Him but to love and to adore. 

If this view we obtain, we must ''launch out into 
the deep" of His divinity, for as they who stand in 
a narrow bay watching wavelets ebb and flow 
upon the shaly strand have a puny image of the 
ocean, so they who gaze upon some mere inlet of 
our Sabbatic Chieftain's power must have a meagre 
conception of his amplitude of glory. But as they 
who go out upon the mighty bosom of the ocean 
to study its kind and potent properties, feel and see 
its ever active swell, swayed by moon and sun, 
refreshing the world, so they who go out into the 
boundless expanse of their Saviour's power will 
feel they have found Him, of whom Moses in the 
law and the prophets did write, ''the Immanuel, 
which being interpreted is, ' God with us.' " 

1. — Our Sabbatarian Prince is the Chieftain of 
nature as well as of the Sabbath. It was He who 
molded the mountains and formed the valleys; He 
fashioned the rivers and sent them through the 
landscape like strands of molten silver, shimmering 
and singing to the sea. He laid the foundations of 
our world ; set it on its axle with needed pose and 
poise. He rules its volcanoes, earthquakes, whirl- 
winds, typhoons, thunders, lightnings and canopies 
of cloud. He holds the oceans and the seas in the 
hollow of His spiritual hand and orders the intri- 
cate laws of cohesive life and motion. He has 



8o 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



formed the fish, fowl, beasts and man, and favors 
them with those manifold provisions on which they 
daily feed. 

He also arched the deep dome of distant blue 
and pillared it with a light which streams from two 
and a quarter octillion tons of fire by day, and 
gemmed it with those gentle rays which rain from 
an immeasurable abyss of stars by night. 

He wheels on this great golden galaxy of gird- 
ling worlds so smoothly we never feel the motion; 
so securely there is no collision ; so punctually 
they are always on time ; so swiftly a cannon ball 
is slow compared with their rapidity ; so noise- 
lessly there is heard no thunder of wheels or horn 
of engineer, save as they in passing strike a vibrant 
chord of that amazing harp hanging from His own 
great throne, swelling forth the grand sub-bass of 
that excelling song, " Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain to receive powei", and riches, and wisdom, and 
strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing," and 
echoing forth in eternal melody the supreme re- 
fram, " For by Him were all things created that 
are created, whether they be thrones, or dominions, 
or principalities, or powers, all things were created 
by Him and for Him, aud He is before all things, 
and by Him all things consist (cohere), - ''that 
in all things He might have the preeminence." 

On, then, ye explorers of nature, on ! Set your 
eyed batteries against the sunny day and starlit 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



8i 



night. Unfold sun after sun, law after law, space 
after space ! Display the order, magnitude, multi- 
tude, magnihcence of these heavenly worlds ! I 
claim them all as fitting brilliants for that brow 
which once was diademed with thorns, for "on 
His head are many crowns,'' and it pleased the 
Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." Oh, 
Sabbath-keeping disciple of Jesus, how inspiring is 
this illustrious truth to you ? Who shall lay any- 
thing to your charge? What shall successfully 
assail you ? Let tribulation, distress, persecution, 
famine, exposure, peril and sword come on ! Let 
the powers of life, the forces of death, adverse 
angels, assaulting principalities, storming powers, 
foes from the present, foes from the future, foes 
from the past, foes from the height, foes from the 
depth, foes however grotesque, grizzly, horrible, 
from unknown regions send forth their long lines 
to the charge. Defended by the Almighty Maker 
and Governor of all the regions and forces of the 
universe, you are tranquilly secure. 

Your adversaries may drive you far down into 
deeps of sorrow, into meshes of temptation, or 
they may drag you abroad into expanses of be- 
wilderment. But I see Him coming down with 
many crowns upon His head through the gloom- 
drift of the ages, crying, as He approaches, "these 
are my jewels,'' and so you can confidently sing. 
Oh, Sabbath Saint, 



82 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



" I know not where His islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air, 
But this I know I cannot drift 
Beyond His love and care." 

But whilst this supremacy of our Sabbatic 
Prince is the most charming truth to the Chris- 
tian, it is the most alarming- to the sinner. Un- 
saved one there is no escape from this omnipresent 
and Almighty Saviour. If you will not receive 
Him as pierced for 3^our sin, you must receive Him 
as pierced by your sin. If you will not come to 
Him ; then He must come to you. If you will 
not receive Him as your deliverer, you must 
receive Him as your judge. If 3^ou hide at the 
roots of the mountains it will be to meet His pre- 
sence there. If you nest among the stars His 
hand will pluck thee thence. If you take the wings 
of the morning and fly avast over the awful rim 
into the region of nothingness, even there shall 
His hand hold thee, for the darkness hideth not 
from Him, the night shineth as the day ; the dark- 
ness and the light are both alike to Him. Since 
then you cannot flee from Him, I pray, I beseech, 
I implore you fly to Him and be by Him for- 
ever saved. Then freed from sin and suffering, 
danger and despair, and fixed upon one that has 
strangely become all in all to 3'ou, your song 
shall be : 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



83 



" Lord of earth Thy forming hand, well this beauteous globe 
hath planned, 

Woods that wave, and hills that tower, oceans rolling in their 
power, 

All that strikes the gaze unsought, all that charms the lonely 
thought; 

Yet, amid this scene so fair, oh, if Thou wert absent there 
What were all these joys to me, whom have I on earth but 
Thee?" 

And when admitted into Heaven again you can 
sing : 

" Lord of Heaven before my sight, rolls a world of purest light 
Where, in love's unclouded reign, parted hands are clasped 
again; 

Martyrs there and seraphs high, blest and glorious company, 
While immortal music rings from unnumbered seraph strings; 
Oh, this scene is passing fair, yet if Thou wert absent there, 
What were all these joys to me, whom have I in Heaven but 
Thee ?" 

Keepers of the Sabbath cheer, for the Son of 
man who is Lord of the Sabbath " is Lord also of 
the vast and varied resources of fathomless nature 
and all the riches of the earth, and all the wealth 
of the sea, and all the glories of the sky and all the 
laws of time, and all the treasures of eternity be- 
long to you who shrine Him in your hearts during 
the ministries of His sweet Sabbath days, [Amens 
and Hallelujahs.] "For all are yours since ye are 
Christ's and Christ is God's." 



84 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



II. — Again, this Sabbath Prince is the great 
Grand Marshal of history. History is more than 
a "barbarous dissonance'' of gory ages, slowly set- 
ting into seas of blood. It is more than a proces- 
sion of blind beings coming up out of mystery, 
marching through suffering and going into 
mystery. 

History is a divine epic, Christ is the poet and 
humanity the theme. Mankmd, therefore, need not 
be borne on a " wailing wake of wandering foam " 
through a dreadful drama to a tragic end. For as 
Clio was Chief of the Muses, so Christ is the Chief 
of History, moving on through all its discordant 
eras with steady aim in view. 

The nations He has woven into the sublime con- 
stituency 6f His plan, and the harp which appears 
wet with tears of time, jangled with the throbs of 
sorrow, still beateth out its melod}^ above the sk3^ 
The dissonances of passing events are but the 
babble of the orchestra getting into tune. There 
is a viewless, voiceless presence, mingling every- 
where with the toiling throng. This presence is our 
Sabbath Prince. He lifts His hand and the human 
tide divides — the evil to the left, the good to the 
right. Neither pohc}' nor pleading can alter the 
historic law. Like gravitation, it never yields. 

"He who is morally right cannot be politically 
wrong. He who is morally wrong cannot be 
politically right." This principle is fundamental. 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



8S 



Trace a few nations and this irrevocable law will 
appear. Babylon, founded by the hunter Nimrod, 
rose to surpassing splendor in the valley of the 
Euphrates. Her youth were vigorous, her women 
virtuous, her men prosperous. But with pros- 
perity came luxury, ignorance, arrogance and 
pride. Her youth grew dissolute, her men shame- 
ful, her women shameless, her senators obsequious, 
her princes imperious, till in all the haughty infla- 
tion of a despot Nebuchadnezzar, the conqueror of 
Syria and Palestine, exclaimed from the summit of 
her hanging gardens, ^' Is not this great Babylon 
that I have built for the house of the Kmgdom by 
the might of my power .f*" There was a voiceless 
presence watching the vain-glorious speaker and 
Nebuchadnezzar was driven from his palace and 
the abodes of men among the beasts of the field 
till he had recognized the God of Heaven. And 
a few years later under his son Belshazzar, Babylon, 
which rose ''like a lovely pearl in a setting of 
emerald," fell fated, for the cup of her iniquity was 
full. 

Her walls, eighty-seven feet thick, towering three 
hundred and fifty feet in air, could not protect her. 
Her hundred brazen gates, designed to roll back the 
waves of war, could not defend her. Her two hun- 
dred and fifty towers of chiselled marble were unable 
to shield her. And even a Daniel, with all his divine 
dreaming and interpreting, could not roll back the 
5 



86 



THE SABBATARIAX PRIXCE, 



ruinous tide. She had captured the Hebrew na- 
tion ; shackled the people of God ; rifled the temple 
of Jehovah ; fostered the black broods of corrup- 
tion, and so the mcne and the tekcl and the iipJiarsin 
which are finally inscribed on incorrigible nations 
glared fatefully from her walls. The hidden heav}' 
hand which striketh out of Zion smote her by the 
troops of Cyrus. She expired beneath the blow, 
gasping a dread death agony, and over her heaps of 
ruins, which hide not her guilty gore, scarcely will 
a Bedouin pitch his tent ; and so the sites of magni- 
fical palaces are given up to the hooting owl, the 
howling hyena the screeching satyr, the ser- 
pent and the wild beast ; and over the expanse of 
weird desolation the hidden hand that marshals 
histor}', has inscribed before the eyes of reflecting 
nations and of men : He that exalteth himself 
shall be abased." " Beware of covetousness, which 
is idolatry.'' 

To show that our Sabbatic Prince is in secular 
history, moving among the nations with steady 
aim in view, look upon the splendid but sad scenes 
of Grecian story ; the brevity, the brilliancy, the 
exquisite ideal beaut}' of the Athenian race," "the 
grace and supremacy of their art," " the splendor 
and perfection of their literature,'' the courage 
and exploits of their heroes, the glorj' and beaut}' 
of their temples — enwreathe them with world-wide 
admiration. 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



87 



And oh ! had Athens learned the lesson of obe- 
dience, ''how gracious and beautiful had been her 
righteousness.'' But beautiful Athens at the base 
of her unequalled Acropolis perversely sinned, and 
so ninety short years after her warriors had routed 
the countless hosts of Hystaspes and Xerxes on a 
''sleepless September night," the baleful wail rang 
down the walls of the Piraeus which announced 
that the famous fleet of Athens had been captured 
at Aegospotami. The deeds of Marathon and 
of Salamis under another Epaminondas could 
not be repeated, and " even-handed justice placed 
the chalice of mingled poison to her lips which she 
had forced the unfortunate to drink." And the 
Prince of the Sabbath, who hears His Father 
say: " Rule thou in the m^dst of thine enemies," 
"Judg-e thou among the heathen," "Wound the 
heads (of treason and tyranny) over many coun- 
tries,'' struck her polished pollutions, inscribing on 
her classic ruins in letters of scorching fire, before 
the eyes of all mankind, that " beauty without 
purity, that intellect without holiness, that elo- 
quence without conscience, that art without reli- 
gion, that insight without love, are but blosscms 
wliose roots are in the corruption of the grave." 

Take but one more example to prove that our 
Prince is in secular history, makmg it sacred, too, 
and molding and supervising it for the final over- 
throw of all great evils. 



88 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRINCE. 



Rome rudely snatched the sceptre from the 
palsied hands of Greece, and so long as Rome was 
pure she was strong. So long as she was the 
Rome of the Camilli, the Cincinnati, the Fabii and 
the elder Scipios ; so long as her Senators came 
from the " honest labor of the farm,'' and her Con- 
suls from the hardy labor of ' the plough," she 
advanced, till her eagles fluttered over one-third 
the globe. But when the dregs of every iniquity 
poured into the Tiber ;" when the old iron disci- 
pline yielded to abounding iniquity and veneered 
vice ; when her trade became imposture and her 
literature a seething cynic scum, then Rome, whom 
mightiest nations curtesied to, fell, fatally wounded 
before a hated cross held in the bleeding hands of 
the world's true King,'' and the Sabbath Prince 
wrote in letters of warning flame over her disman- 
tled Coliseum, her crumbling palaces, her wrecked 
and forsaken Forum, the burning sentences for all 
mankind to read, that it is " self-denial and not lux- 
ury, humility and not insolence, charity and not 
violence, justice and not ambition,'' divinity and not 
humanity, that are to elevate nations as well as 
men. 

Thus my friends when you sweep away the 
superficial shadows and penetrate beneath the 
surface of events to their cause, you find one there 
marching through the chaotic gulf of human 
history. His presence is divinely terrible and 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



S9 



divinely beautiful, moving with a mute majesty 
that everywhere sends overwhelming ruin upon 
the unimprovable ^:>eoples of mankind. The great 
Isaiah caught prophetic glimpses of Him trampling 
nations in his fury till their life blood besprent his 
raiment, because the day of vengeance was in his 
heart and the year of his redeemed was come. The 
persiflage of journalism and the vaporing of 
infidelity shrivel up before His face as trees to 
tinder, turn before the shafts of lightning torn. 
And my hearers this avenging, ameliorating Im- 
manuel is going on by line upon line, warning 
upon warnmg, disaster upon disaster, evolution 
upon evolution, mercy upon mercy, till all the 
world submit gracefully to his sweet pacific sway. 

Look at the condition of affairs to-day as they 
appear on the political map of the world. 

Resting in northeastern Atlantic lies an Isle not 
larger than our York and Jersey, whose war drum 
in every clime salutes the rising sun. She has her 
hand on dominions, on our own continent many 
times larger than herself. The great Pacific is 
mottled with her colonies, and the best parts of 
Africa are under her control. She holds the keys 
of the Gates of Hercules ; and the Mediterranean, 
with all its cl:\ssic memories, is studded with her 
possessions. Syria, Persia, Turkey, are hanging 
on her golden girdle, and she sways her sceptre 
from the high crests of Afghanistan to the shores 



90 



THE SABBATARIAN PRIXCE. 



of Ceylon over a population eight times her own. 
In response to her call the hermit nations of China 
and Japan have opened up their ports. Why this 
world wide power of that isle of the Northern Sea? 
Does the secret lie in her insular position, in the 
prowess of her army and navy, or in the bravery of 
her people ? No, but in the empowering, hidden 
hand of Him who loves her open Bible, who is 
adored in her free churches, who is preached on 
her kept Sabbath, who is exalted and revered by 
the masses of her people, who is honored and 
acknowledged generally from the humblest hut to 
highest palace of the nation, and so long as this 
divine Jesus of the Sabbath is the keeper of Great 
Britain's seals, so long as He is worshipped b}^ the 
parliament and by the people, so long as he vitalizes 
her throngs and her thrones, in vain will Lord 
Macauley's prophetic New Zealander come to 
gaze from London bridge upon the ruins of St. 
Paul's. But this inviolate pi'otection will cease if 
ever Great Britain's Sabbath is deluged with dissi- 
pation, secular songs and drinking carousals. 

And what is the real cause of the prosperity of 
these United States? Is it because we have 
3,000,000 square miles of territory ? South America 
has more, 12,000 miles of ocean frontage. Africa 
has more, 24,000 miles of river navigation. China 
excels us. Is it because our lakes, rivers, cataracts 
and prairies are most expansive and our annual 



THE SABBATARIAN PRIXCE. 



91 



products most abundant? Is it because our terri- 
tory, garnished with grain and flecked with fruits 
and flow^ers, stretches through thirty degrees 
of latitude and like a variegated virgin bathes her 
feet in the warm waters of the South, and pillows 
her cool, quiet head amid the iceberg palaces of 
the North ? 

Is it because our troops fought so bravely at 
Bunker Hill, Trenton and Yorktown during the Rev- 
olution? At Monterey, Palo Alto and Contreras in 
the Mexican campaign? At Vicksburg, Antietam, 
Gettysburg and Wilderness during the Rebellion ? 
With all due appreciation of territorial magnifi- 
cence, and with all patriotic thanks to the soldiers 
of this commonwealth, I must, in justice to the 
truth of God, declare that the prosperity and per- 
petuity of this republic rest, not altogether on geo- 
graphic splendors, agricultural glories, commercial 
superiorities, nor even upon brilliant military 
achievements. But in the last analysis, the mission 
and magnificence of this country for their perpetu- 
ation depend, upon the Almighty and All Loving 
Redeemer of mankind, the Sabbatic Prince whom 
we adore. He is the infallible Magna Charta of all 
important privileges. 

And so long as He is adored by our people, 

" The star-bangled banner in triumph shall wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave," 



92 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRIKCE, 



So long as His Sabbaths are kept, 

" Wil] freedom from her mountain height 
Unfurl her standard to the air, 
And break the murky spell of night, 
And set the stars of glory there." 

[Shower of amens.] 

And furthermore, so long as His church is true 
in England and America, will He march on among 
the nations, overthrowing the bad, establishing the 
good, expelling cruelty, curbing passion, branding 
suicide, repressing murder, driving the shameful 
impurities of paganism into congenial darkness. 
He will go on overthrowing tyrants, foiling pluto- 
crats, freeing slaves, nursing the sick, restoring the 
fallen, sheltering the orphan, elevating women, 
shrouding in a halo of innocence the tender years 
of the child. He will go on changing pity into a 
virtue, elevating poverty into a blessing, ennobling 
labor into a dignit}^ He will go on revealing the 
beauty of purit}', the glor}^ of meekness, the gran- 
deur of charity, the eternal nobilit}- of man and the 
transcending goodness of God. Nor will He be 
stayed by sceptics, rationalists, free thinkers, nihi- 
lists, agnostics, deists or atheists, till rum, rowdy- 
ism, rascalit}^ and every species of wrong be turned 
into tophet together. And He will use steamships, 
railroads, telegraphs, telephones and all other in- 
ventions flowing from the fertile brain of His 
church, to ride into the uttermost parts of the 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRINCE. 



93 



earth. In this time of the end foreseen by the 
prophet Daniel, when many run to and fro, and 
knowledge shall be increased," the presence of our 
Prince is increasingly immanent on the field, mov- 
ing forward with steady purpose, preparing the 
wide world for salvation as He has prepared salva- 
tion for the world. [Hallelujahs.] 

He has abolished Egyptianism and out of its 
wreckage evolved the sacredness of the human 
body. He has overcome Zoroasterism and out of 
its system portrayed in sharp contrast the battle 
between good and evil. He has overcome Gre 
danism and out of the wreck brought forth ideal 
beauty. He has overthrown imperial Romanism 
and out of the disaster established the authority 
of law. He has overthrown Thorism and on the 
ruins raised up a resplendent freedom. 

Elusive as electricity, greater than gravity, silent 
and steady as the motion of the spheres. He has 
already moved into the hermetic nations of the 
East, nor will He leave them till the Taoism, Con- 
fucianism and ancestralism of China have fallen be- 
fore His gospel, and the Buddhism, Shintoism and 
evils of Japan have been abolished by His truth, 
and the Brahmanism, Vishnuism and Sevaism of 
India have fled into oblivion before the glow of His 
heavenly spirit, and into every other idolatrous 
segment of the earth will He move till all idolatries 
He shall have buried in the same grave in which He 



94 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRINCE. 



has already entombed the mythical idols of Baby- 
lon, Greece and Rome, Egypt, Persia and Teu- 
tonia. Then the redeemed race, entranced in 
ecstacy, will sing from pole to pole as they fix their 
affections upon the Great Deliverer, 



" Welcome, sweet day of rest, 
That saw the Lord arise; 
Welcome to this reviving breast, 
And these rejoicing eyes ! 

The King himself comes near, 
And feasts his saints to-day; 

Here we may sit, and see him here. 
And love, and praise and pray. 

One day in such a place, 

Where thou, my God, art seen, 

Is sweeter than ten thousand days 
Of pleasurable sin. 

My willing soul would stay 

In such a frame as this. 
And sit and sing herself away 

To everlasting bliss." 



Amens and hallelujahs ! 

How consoling must these great facts be to you 
to-day ? Oh ! folloAvers of our Sabbath prince. 
He has by his Father been delegated vicegerent 
of this universe. "All power is given unto Him 
in heaven and on earth." His resources are illimit- 
able, His purpose is eternal and His love is infinite. 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRINCE. 



95 



He has undertaken the greatest and most loving 
contract that ever was projected. " He will not 
fail or be discouraged till he brings forth victory. 
[Amens.] 

The Sabbath is His great field day of action. 
He has appointed it as the time when men, free 
from the siren charms of the earth, shall be fascina- 
ted and redeemed with the ever evolving themes 
of heaven. 

It would be easy to go on and show the grand 
reasons why the Son of Man is Lord of the Sab- 
bath. Because on it he rose, because on it he 
specially sends out his messengers and forth His 
spirit. Because by it He will instruct, inspire, 
mould and elevate the teeming millions of mankind 
so that all eternity shall become Sabbatic and all 
redeemed humanity serene. 

Like fragments of eternity He has set His Sab- 
baths in the midst of these toiling, sweltering days 
of time, that all who are weary and heavy laden 
might hear of Him and come to Him for rest. 
[Chorus of hallelujahs.] He has launched the 
Sacred Seventh like a rescue barque and sent it out 
in the midst of the foaming billows. He is the cap- 
tain ; His ministers the crew; His church members 
the passengers : rescue of all the race the object. 

" Awake ye saints, awake, and hail the Sacred Day, 
In loftiest songs of praise your joyful homage pay, 
Come bless the day that God hath blest. 
The type of Heaven's eternal rest." 



96 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



If then this day is the world's life-boat, framed of 
twent3^-four glorious beams of time, what shall we sa}^ 
to the pirates who want to defile its hours and 
pollute its moments, and take it down with them- 
selves through the gugling billows of damnation ? 
That is the vital question now agitating the whole 
earth. What would you do with other pirates 
but attack them with shot and shell, and make it so 
hot for them that they either retreat or surrender. 
This is the only remedy for these Sabbath scuttlers. 
There is nothing else to be done. They will en- 
croach and encroach, and seize and seize, and in- 
trude and intrude, till they have turned the fair 
ship of heaven into a charnel house of beer kegs, 
fermentations, dissipation and licentious abomina- 
tions. Out upon them, oh ! ye Deborahs in Israel, 
and as the brave Barbara Heck, when through 
Sabbath card playing Philip Embury, was disgrac- 
ing this day of the Lord, went up and threw the 
whole pack into the fire and ordered him up from 
his back sliding to preaching the word of God, 
and so became the first foundress of Methodism in 
New York, if not indeed America. [Hallelujahs.] So 
approach these Sabbath prostituting sinners and 
like Saint Barbara, lay violent hands on the dese- 
crating utensils, and summon them Avith a storm 
of earnestness to duty for the Kingdom of Heaven 
suffereth violence and the violent take it by force." 

And ye Nehemiahs who are building the crystal 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRINCE. 



97 



walls of the new Jerusalem in the hearts and minds 
of the people, shut down the gates on Sabbath 
defilement. 

Out upon the defilers with the double forces of 
love and law, and let them know that you will lay 
hands on them." Hands of faith and love and 
prayer, if need be, if they depart not from dissipat- 
ing and defiling the Holy Day. 

And as you go on this duty do not look to man. 

Vain is the help of man.'' Look to God for help 
and Jesus Christ will come again and demonstrate 
to the people of Newark from the meadows to the 
hill that the Son of Man is preeminently fitted for 
Lordship of the Sabbath, since He is the active 
Prince of natui:e and of history. 



The Sabbatarian Prince— Continued. 



Sunday Morning, July 26, 1891. 



Luke vi, 5 — "And he said unto them that the Son of Man is Lord 
also of the Sabbath." 



N last Lord's Day we observed that our Sa- 



vioLir is the appointed Mediator between 
God the Father and man the sinn'er. That this 
high station and His own Divine nature constitute 
Him Creator of man's physical sphere and Con- 
ductor of man's historic evolutions. That this 
illustrious Vice-gerency gives pith, point and 
power to His own declaration that He is " Lord of 
the Sabbath." Because being in possession of all 
the forces of nature and resources of history, He is 
well able to maintam the sacred majesty of that 
Holy Day against all obtruders. 

This morning we shall go two steps further and 
portray our Sabbatic Prince as Lord also of sacred 
Revelation and Christian experience, and demon- 
strate therefrom that He is peculiarly fitted to be 
" Lord of the Sabbath." 




THE SABBA TARIAN PRINCE. 



99 



I. — He is the Lord of sacred Scripture : He is 
the central figure of redemption's story. It was 
the Prince of the Sabbath that appeared to the first 
human pair after the sad scenes that forfeited Para- 
dise, giving them hope by promise that " the seed 
of the Avoman should bruise the serpent's head," 
and warning by circling sword of flaming Sera- 
phim, which guarded the way of the tree of life. 

It was the Prince of the Sabbath that commanded 
Noah to preach to the early sinning giants, to build 
the Ark, and from the floods to save, by his own 
family, the human nucleus from which races of 
smaller statue, but larger virtue, might spring. 

It was this Lord of the Sabbath commissioned 
Abraham to go forth from his ancestral home to 
the land he knew not of, but from whence he would 
make his children as the sand on the seashore for 
multitude, and as the lustrous globes which nightly 
gleam in an oriental sky for beauty. 

It was this Lord of the Sabbath guarded from 
hann the tender years of Moses, conducted him to 
Arabian solitudes and there gave him high com- 
munion, commanded him from burning bush to 
rescue Israel from Egypt's thrall ; sustained him 
by mighty miracle and august presage, in the pres- 
ence of earth's greatest king ; opened the Red Sea 
that he and his might pass unharmed ; whelm 'd 
his royal foes in its closing billows ; gave him, mid 
thunders that shook Sinai, the moral law ; fed 



lOO 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRINCE, 



his nation of delivered slaves with manna miracu- 
lously provided ; slaked the thirst of itinerating 
millions with a river which strangely followed 
them ; guided the march for forty years, and finally 
swept with the sword of Josiah the land of Canaan, 
so that the Chosen could settle amid its verdant 
valleys flowing with milk, and its vine-clad hills 
exuding honey. 

It was this Lord of the Sabbath who appeared to 
Job amid his crashing fortunes and inspired him to 
cry through all disaster and recrimination, as if 
strung upon a Divine diapason, Though He slay 
me yet will I trust in Him, " ^ ^ " for I 
know that my Redeemer liveth." 

It was this Lord of the Sabbath annotated those 
lyric and didatic odes of the poetic king and royal 
prophet, which, after having cheered David and 
his mighty men amid the fastnesses of Engedi, 
around the court of Achish, in the caverns of 
Adullam, in the forest of Hareth, in the wild wil- 
derness of Ziph, around the cliffs of Carmel, in the 
ancestral home of Hebron, throughout the wars 
against Philistine, Moabite, Ammonite, Syrian and 
Rabbah, are yet to float on till the}^ swell God's 
praise from the ponderous peaks of the Andes to 
the crystal crests of the Himalayas. 

It was this Sabbath Lord appeared to the lofty- 
souled Isaiah as the Mighty Comer in the bright 
but tragic future, ensanguined with an atoning 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRINCE. 



lOI 



gore, which wrung from him the cry from his 
watch-tower, " Who is this that cometh from Eden 
with dyed garments from Bozra, this that is glori- 
ous in his apparel, travehng in the greatness of his 
strength," and gave him for answer, I that speak 
in righteousness, mighty to save." 

It was this Sabbath Lord appeared on the lonely 
banks of Chebar, kindled the keen vision of exiled 
Ezekiel, to see those eyed wheels white with heat 
flying round their dreadful rings, rolling forth 
might and mercy on mankind. 

It was this Sabbath Lord stood before the eyes 
of Jeremiah, the weeping lion, turning his tears 
into eternal crystals, which enabled him to discern 
in the gloom-clad distance the world's adorable 
Deliverer coming as Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord 
our righteousness." 

It was the Lord of the Sabbath enabled the 
minor prophets to catch those fine touches, of fan- 
tasy and flame, that heralded the morning's dawn 
in the approaching person of the Son of God Him- 
self coming to dwell among and die for men. 

At length that sacred Person came, of maiden 
mother and virgin wife so appropriately born, in 
Bethlehem, fulfilling the old-time prophecy, But 
thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little 
among the thousands of Judah,yet out of thee shall 
He come forth unto me that is to be Ruler in 
Israel ; whose goings forth have been of old, 



I02 



THE SA BBA TA RIA N PRINCE . 



from everlasting." — Micah v, 2. No royal babe 
had ever such wondrous and majestic natal con- 
voy. The stars deputed one of their number to 
hover with lustrous rays over the manger cradle 
of the baby King. The angels sent the brightest 
choir they could furnish to sing in shepherd ears 
His advent — Glory to God in the highest ; 
peace on earth, good will toward men." The sages 
from the East deputed three of their number 
(Balthar, Gasparand Melchior) to present Him wor- 
ship, accompanied with gold, frankincense and 
myrrh. And on His great inaugural day, from the 
riven heavens the Eternal Father cried to the 
crowds on the Jordan : " This is my beloved Son, 
hear ye Him." 

The commissioned forerunner was already stand- 
ing in his track, with heroic soul beating under 
rugged robe of camel's hair, with emaciated ascetic 
form, that had issued from the caves of communion, 
girt with leathern girdle, living on locusts and wild 
honey, drinking water from the brook and making 
the whole land echo with the strange cry. There 
cometh one after me who is preferred before me 
for he was before me." "There standeth one among 
you whom ye know not, whose shoes latched I am 
not worthy to unloose. He shall baptize you with 
the Holy Ghost and fire. " Behold (in Him), the 
Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the 
world." 



THE SA BBA TA RIA IST PRINCE, 103 

And as soon as tliat Surpassing Stranger appeared 
his whole Kfe was elevated with a startling sublim- 
ity. Nature reversed her lav^^s at his will. The 
unconscioLis water saw its Lord and blushed.'' 
The lame leaped as harts, the eyes of blind men 
saw, the tongues of dumb men spake, the spirits of 
demons shrieked and fled, paralysis, leprosy and all 
manner of diseases passed away. Death itself, gave 
up its dead. Hypocrites and incorrigible sinners 
chafed with dread ; the devil was vanquished in 
the wilderness ; hell and all its host were overcome 
in Gethsemane ; death was doomed by death on 
Calvary and nature's loftiest law gave way before 
that omnipotence, which became the ascending 
chariot of the Mediatorial and Victorious Con- 
queror from Olivet. [Many glories.] 

Oh, classic grounds of the patriarchs, upon your 
acres have pressed the sacred feet of Him who was 
nailed upon the bitter cross for our advantage. He 
has finished the Redemption ; He has laid the foun- 
dations of the new spiritual world ; He has gone to 
execute his plan ; gone to send down the fires of 
the Pentecost through all human ages ; gone to in- 
spire the spirits of His people with power from on 
high ; gone to reappear in a blinding glory on the 
high road to Damascus, which shall fling from His 
saddle the Arch inquisitor and change Saul the 
slaughterer into Paul the preacher. [Hallelujahs.] 
It was this Sabbath Lord, who, by His spirit, 



104 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



appeared in the tender remonstrances to the Corin- 
thians ; in the exalted arguments to the Romans ; in 
the burning logic of the Hebrews; the heavenly jc}^ 
of the Philippians ; the divine fulness of the Colos- 
sians ; the peans of the heavenlies to the Ephesians 
in the liberating epistle of Philemon, in the pas- 
toral manuals to Timothy, in the faith and work 
epistle of James and love letters of John. 

It was this same Sabbath Lord reappeared to 
those aged eyes of Patmos (which often glanced 
lovingly into His face from His bosom), standing 
in the midst of creation's sevenfold lights, head 
white with antiquity : eyes flaming with command ; 
" voice as sound of many waters;" "countenance 
as the sun shining in its strength ; " moving with 
natural grace and beauty mid heaven's mightiest 
mysteries; opening seals of history ; sounding trum- 
pets of destiny ; pouring wrath-vials of doom ; hurl- 
ing thunderheads of ruin and lightnings of wither- 
ing vengeance upon sin and giving those gorgeous 
gleamings of the New Jerusalem with which the 
Great Book ends. [Hallelujahs.] 

Thus, though this volume was written in sixty- 
six parts, by forty-one authors in the uplands of 
Armenia, in the lowlands of the Nile, in the soli- 
tudes of Arabia, in the landscapes of Canaan, on the 
distant banks of the Euphrates, and in many an un- 
known nook of the Mediterranean, yet each fits all, 
all fits each, for there is no part of which the Sab- 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRINCE. 



bath Prince is not the unifying and Immanent Soul. 

He is in its prophecies, making them sure ; in its 
history, making it majestic ; in its poetry, making 
it sublime ; in its types, making them significant ; 
in its arguments, rendering them unanswerable ; in 
its promises, rendering them valid ; in its threaten- 
ings, rendering them terrible. Over the surface of 
this book there runs a broken record of sin. Under 
the surface of this book there runs an unbroken 
swell of love. These two lap and tie in the first 
sentence of Genesis and the last of Revelations, 
and the whole volume quivers with the tremor of 
an Almighty kindness, which lives till it consumes 
the world's woes and carries the devoted reader to 
eternal ecstacy ; because the Sabbath Lord, who is 
the expression of that love, lives in every jot and 
tittle, so that even a significant vowel point cannot 
pass away till all be fulfilled. Oh, Blessed Book ! 
My father's guide, my mother's joy ! No wonder 
the sceptics could not stab thee, nor rationalists 
rend thee, nor atheists and infidels bury thee, nor 
even papists burn thee, since in thee He lives who 
gives all worlds their life ; since by thee He moves 
who marches among the nations, overthrowing 
their towering evils as very little things. [Praise 
the Lord and amens.] 

Blessed Book ! Thou hast shone into the brawny 
breasts of our savage ancestors and of them hast 
made men; thou hast set the moral canopy of the 



io6 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRIXCE. 



benighted world with man}- hopeful stars ; thou 
dost send thy auroral rays over the dales of Asia, 
the glades of Europe, and the virgin landscapes of 
this young land. Shine on I oh, venerable volume ; 
shine, till all men brothers be, and Christ is wor- 
shipped as the Sabbath Lord b}^ all. [Amens.] 

Oh, Blessed Sabbath King I I will stay my soul 
on Thy triumphs when in the midst of life's fiercest 
battles ; I will pillow my head on Th}' promises 
when I come to lay me down in the gloom of the 
grave ; I will fl}' to heaven on Thv word when mv 
body lies in the cold embraces of the tomb. For 
the Son of Man is Lord also of the sacred Scrip- 
ture as He is of the Sabbath. And this is another 
fact that gives such solemn majesty and sublime 
meaning to that Holy Da}'. Oh, Blessed Septenary, 
appomted and governed by our Redeeming Lord, 
ma}^ th}' sacred ministries sweep us weekly nearer 
home. [A rain of amens.] 

And as the Lord of the Sabbath is also Lord 
of Creation, History and Sacred Scripture, so He 
is Lord of the highest and best human experi- 
ences. It is said that Mercury made the three- 
chorded lyre of the Greeks, by Avhich men's hearts 
were cheered v\-ith song. But the Lord of this 
sacred seventh of time has framed the triple-chorded 
harp of Redemption of a vibrant note from nature, 
a long resounding tone from history, and a recon- 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



ciling chime from Scripture. From these, with 
wounded hands, he beateth out regenerating sym- 
phonies the whole world round. And this great 
and glorious change comes upon the sons of sin 
by personal experience. 

Experiment is the order of the day in art and 
science. It is fitting it should be the stirring ques- 
tion of the hour in the soul's salvation. 

" What we have felt and seen 
With confidence we tell." 

" He who has felt the power of the Highest 
Cannot confound or doubt Him, or deny ; 
Yea, with one voice, oh world, though thou repliest, 
Stand thou on that side, for on this am I." 

In this experience seen by faith and felt by love, 
the Lord of the Sabbath is the All-Surpassing Cen- 
tral Figure. His administrative force transforms 
the whole ; this our own experience verifies. 
When our sins rose up like appalling monsters from 
the deep past of our life, armed with thunderheads 
of desolation, and charged with lightnings of equit- 
able wrath, and our remorse was quivering with 
demons and laden with despair, and our baleful 
eyes could scantily make way for the contrite tears 
that welled up from our crushed and wounded 
heart ; then, when thus transfixed, we wept our 
way toward the cross in our plea for pity, there 
appeared this strangely wounded form ; over his 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRINCE, 



head an aureole like a nimbus hung ; from his hands 
and feet, and side, and brow, there dripped from 
opened wounds the blood, and he strangely whis- 
pered in our heart, I suffered this for you," and 
then in answer to that inly-speaking voice, dire 
depression as if by magic fled. The hectic fever 
of our hearts was stilled ; the thunders ceased ; the 
lurid lightnings passed ; the clouds rolled away ; 
the demons disappeared as with that right bleeding 
hand. He rolled up the accusing scroll, of our dark 
volumed crimes and threw it into oblivion forever, 
saying " I was wounded for your transgressions ; I 
was bruised for your iniquities and the chastisement 
of your peace was laid on me, and by My stripes ye 
are healed." But though thus pardoned we found 
ourselves out on the arid mountains of error still 
orphaned and far from home, with souls that were 
needy, helpless, ready to die, famished and eager 
to appease our heart hunger with the husks which 
no man gave. There was no one to take us in, no 
one to save us from the pitiless storm, and no home 
before us but the grave. Lo, we descried through 
the tear dimmed eye of our faith that same form 
again, but now transfigured, wafturing us home, 
and saying with all the tenderness of a heavenly 
shepherd's voice : " Come unto me all ye that labor 
and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." 

In my Father's house are many mansions," etc. 

These were gladdening words, and we leaped to 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRmCE. 



109 



obey them ; we left the far country of sorrow and 
sin ; we followed the great but gentle voice within, 
till finally we found ourselves safely and serenely 
in our Heavenly Father's Church of love, of 
praise, of prayer below, and so we are here to- 
day. [Hallelujahs.] ''No more strangers and for- 
eigners, but fellow citizens with the saints in light, 
and of the household of God, " expecting our 
native heaven. But though thus beneficently for- 
given and adopted, there was still another great 
work to be accomplished. We felt at times in us 
the wolf of sin, the leopard of passion, and the lion 
of leasing, making a ghastly charnel house of our 
very hearts. Then again we lifted up our prayer. 
He listened to our pitiful cry ; He looked with 
eyes of refining fire upon their malignity and 
malice ; He entered our souls, crimsoned as He 
was with regenerating love. The savage menage- 
rie felt the withering spell of his taming presence ; 
the wolf slunk down beside the lamb of love, the 
leopard crouched meekly beside the kid of peace, 
the lion became harmless and docile as the patient 
ox, and there was no destructive power left in all 
the realm of our souls. And ever since our graces 
sleep as sweetly on the tamed passions' necks as 
did Daniel on the lion's mane. [Hallelujah.] 

World, flesh and Satan have since rushed upon 
us like maddening floods ; but our Deliverer has 
6 



no 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRINCE. 



always lifted up a standard against them ; and we 
feel, as He stands between us and our adversaries, 

" What though a thousand worlds engage 
Ten thousand hosts our souls to shake, 
We have a shield, shall quell their rage, 
And drive the alien armies back ; 

Portrayed, it bears a bleeding Lamb ; 
I dare believe in Jesus' name," 

[Showers of amens.] 

There was but one more blessing which we 
needed to enable us to pursue our way like con- 
querors filled with the joy of conquest ; and this 
was the great gift of the Holy Ghost. Nor was 
our Sabbath Lord slow nor scant in conferring this 
high rich blessing. Tenderly he breathed upon 
us, as of old, saying : Receive ye the Holy 
Ghost,'' and that Divine Comforter came in when 
we heeded the voice of Christ and opened wide 
our hearts. 

He came as the promised representative of our 
Lord, teaching us all things ; bringing all things to 
our remembrance that Jesus said to us ; turning sor- 
row into joy; adversity into prosperit}^ ; pain into 
pleasure ; darkness into light ; weakness into 
strength ; poverty into riches, and death into life. 
He comforts us by this Blessed Holy Ghost in all 
our perplexities ; teaches us the plans of Provi- 
dence, the meaning of mystery, the mission of 
pain. [Praise the Lord.] He gives us those wisely 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



Ill 



meted measures of light which gradually dawn 
upon us as our eyes can bear, till finally now we 
see — 

" That God is love, and love creation's final law, 
Though nature, red in beak and claw- 
In ravine, shriek against the creed," 

He shows us that though we are now traveling 
through the middle of the nightshades of time, yet 
we are traveling toward the eternal morning; that 
though — 

" Down below a sad, mysterious music, 

Wailing from the woods and on the shore, 
Burdened with a grand, majestic secret. 
Which keeps sweeping from us evermore," 

" Up above a music that entwineth 
In eternal chords of golden sound 
The great poem of this strange existence. 

All whose wondrous meaning hath been found." 



Oh, the gracious grandeur of that morning 
When the Christ shall come to take us home. 

And from sighs and tears and death returning, 
We shall gather in our Father's home. 

Brethren, the glory of the Greeks was Alexan- 
der, because of Granicus ; of the Carthagenians, 
Hannibal, because of Cannas ; of the French, Na- 
poleon, because of Austerlitz. But our glory is 



112 



THE SABBA TARIAN PRINCE. 



the Lord of the Sabbath, because of Calvary and 
Pentecost. It is through Him, riven here, we see 
the stars of hope. 

Indeed, 'tis through Him we see the universe set 
in harmony to the music of man's redemption. It 
is through Him we perceive the coherence of the 
parts of life's strange drama, and look out with won- 
der on the perfection and harmony of God's great 
living temple. [Hallelujahs.] 

When wandering round St. Peters, Rome, the 
greatest cathedral and most complex of any on the 
planet, a temple on which the Raphaels, Angelos 
and Berninis have exhausted their artistic skill, you 
come upon a plain small door along the building's 
side. It seemed an entrance to the poorest part of 
the temple, but in a moment after passing through 
this narrow door the interior of this mighty fabric 
rose in proportionate grandeur before the view. 
The awful dome of Angelo, where flew giant 
prophets wielding pens large as men ; the marble 
pillars to find which the bones of the world had 
been disjointed and polished ; the superb paint- 
ings by angel artists and rarest statues streaming 
gracefully from the gods of sculpture; the exquis- 
itely fitted mosaics which dazzled the eye and im- 
pressed the memory ; the entrancing music pealing 
now as from afar off tubes of thunder, and then as 
from near divine abodes. What that unpretentious 
door is to the greatest cathredral of earth, the Lord 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



of the Sabbitli is to the great living temple of this 
universe. When you enter and look through Him 
contradictions become harmonized, disproportions 
proportionate. [Hallelujahs.] 

Nature is so transformed that every bush is 
aflame with God. History is so transposed that 
every event shines with the potent purpose of an 
eternal Lover. Scripture becomes so important 
that it appears as the literary fabric, on which is dis- 
played the divinely focused lens of the Son of 
Man, through whom we look on the Fatherliness of 
God. 

Experience becomes so saintly and so satisfying 
that the soul swells in an ecstacy of exultation at 
the recollection of the divine goodness and mercy. 
[Am ens.] Oh, men and women bound for eternity 
through inextricable m.azes, draw up all your forces 
and with heaven storming prayer enter that door, 
for " the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and 
the violent take it by force," and the Lord of the 
Sabbath is Lord also of salvation to the backslider. 
Some of you may be backsliders, and you have lost 
the door in threading your way through the dark 
and dismal labyrinths of this world. 

In 1877 I was passing along the Appian Way to 
inspect the catacombs. Arriving at the St. Sebas- 
tian chapel a serge clad and sandaled monk with 
tiny taper led the way into these deep far reaching 
recesses of the historic Christian dead. Here were 



114 



THE SABBA TAR TAX PRINCE. 



caps russet with the martyrs' blood, here httle 
chapels where they prayed, and there dun- 
geons where they died, but there was one crypt 
which for a time became a hving tomb. A ven- 
tursome young archceologist dared alone these 
complex and illimitable alleys, and tied a cord 
at the entrance, unwinding it as he proceeded, 
h-:p:ng it would lead him safely out. But while 
flushed with excitement over some new discover- 
ies, he unconsciously let slip that cord on which 
his life was suspended. Discovering his loss, 
t?rror struck him through and through, anguish 
fevered heart and brain, transfixed with half despair 
he searched vainly for his treasure, bafBed at every 
avenue, foiled by every device, he finally swooned 
away in a paroxysm of despair, recovering just a 
little sensibility he felt something familiar had 
bean touched by his hand. He felt for it again, and 
found it to be his long lost cord. His half depart- 
ing soul fiew back into his body, he sprang to his 
feet intoxicated with hope, and folding up his cord 
as he walked found the exit and the day. 

Backsliden brother, you are that man. I place 
in your hand the lost clue. Fold it round your 
heart and follow it, and it will lead you to the only 
entrance to eternal life ; to every blessing in the 
life that now is ; to every glory in the life to come. 

And let the whole world knovv% especially let this 
city from centre to suburbs understand that this 



THE SABBATARIAN PRINCE. 



Jesus, the Christ, the Logos, the Almighty Chief- 
tain of the mighty powers of nature, of the great 
evolutions of history, of the illuming powers of 
Revelation, of the best and highest human experi- 
ences, is the Lord of the Sabbath Day, and that, 
therefore, He is amply able to level the resistless 
artillery of heaven, and sweep into abysmal ruin 
all persistent desecrators of this His sanctified sep- 
tenary of time. Therefore, Sabbath violator of 
whatever nationality thou art, fly from the pollu- 
tion of the Holy Sabbath as from an earthquake, 
and set it apart as the appointed time to prepare 
for the Sabbath without end. [Amens.] 



The Sabbatic Knight in Complete Armor 



Sunday Evening, August 2, 1891. 

I. Samuel, xxi, 9.—" If thou wilt take that take it, for there is 
none other save that here. And David said, There is none 
like that ; give it me." 

Ephesians V, 10-14. — "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the 
Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole 
armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the 
wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and 
blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the 
rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wick- 
edness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole 
armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil 
day and having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore, having 
your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast- 
plate of righteousness." 

T^AVID was fleeing from the dark-souled, sus- 
picious Saul, unarmed and unprepared for 
battle. In the precipitancy of his flight he rushed 
into the tabernacle at Nob alone (the House of God 
is the best place to go in trouble), and asked Ahime- 
lech, the high priest, for spear or sword. The priest 
replied : " The sword of Goliath, the Philistine, 
whom thou slewest in the valley of Elah, behold it 



THE SABBATIC KNIGHT. 



is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If 
thou wilt take that take it, for there is no other 
save that here." David, with the curt, prompt 
decision of a warrior, said : There is none like 
that ; give it me." This is the history of our Old 
Testament text ; now for the history of our 
New. St. Paul had been ranging, as the first 
great Missionary warrior of the infant Church 
among the Gentiles. He had swept like an all- 
observing eagle over Bithynia, Galatia, Troas, 
Macedonia, Greece, and many other places subdued 
by Roman arms, and at length had entered Rome 
itself, where he was guarded as a prisoner by relays 
of the far-famed legions. He had ample oppor- 
tunity of observing the armature of the world-con- 
quering cohorts of the capital. He was just clos- 
ing an important letter on " The Heavenlies " to 
the Ephesian troops whom he had in a three years 
hard fought campaign banded into the Army of 
the Church at Ephesus ; with a heroic soul, glow- 
ing with supernal militancy, he seized upon the 
imagery of the secular armor before him to sym- 
bolize the spiritual armory within him, and so 
through his pen he exclaims : Finally, my breth- 
ren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his 
might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye 
may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, 
for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
against principalities, against powers, against the 



Il8 THE SABBATIC KNIGHT 

rulers of the darkness of this world, against spirit- 
ual wickedness in high places ; wherefore take 
unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may 
be able to stand in the evil day, and having done 
all to stand." He then proceeds to present the 
various pieces of the Armature which would render 
the Christian Sabbatic host invulnerable, invinci- 
ble and victorious. As we to-night survey this 
panoply donned by the real Sabbatic knight we 
trust all of you will see " There is none like that," 
and exclaim, with David, Give it me." [Amens.] 
There have been many calls to arms, but there 
never was and never will be so important a call as 
this, for we have the greatest battle in all this uni- 
verse to fight, and yet of all creatures we by nature 
are least defended. 

The bee has her poisonous poniard ; the eagle 
his beak, wing and claw ; the hart his halberts of 
horn ; the wolf and seal their robes of fur ; but 
nature, alas, has left us weaponless and costume- 
less. Born without natural armature, we are phy- 
sically exposed to the wild fury of the elements. 
We have had to organize into societies of farmers, 
builders and weavers against starvation, and not- 
withstanding all protective policies a host of pangs 
sweeps us on to the grave. This physical desti- 
tution is emblematical of our intellectual deficien- 
cies. For our bodies are not only vmdefended ; 
our minds are also wofully exposed. The bird sur-: 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



119 



passes us in sagacity ; the beast in instinct ; whilst 
there is scarcely any great law of life concerning 
which we have not erred. We have been deceived 
about the earth beneath us, the stars above us, the 
elements around us. We have erred concerning 
gravity, chemistry and history. We have blun- 
dered in regard to social order and civil govern- 
ment. We have misconceived the structure of our 
own being and the conservation of our existence, 
while the great questions of life, death and destiny 
wrap us in an endless maze of mysteries. 

Our bodies and minds are not only endangered, 
but our spirits are utterly defenceless and insecure. 
The discontent, the restlessness, the anxieties, the 
sins, the insanities, the suicides and murders prove 
this abundantly. It is not life that men lead — it is 
anguish, and mankind would not 

" Grunt and sweat under such weary life 
But that the dread of something after death; 
The undiscovered country from whose bourn 
No traveler returns, puzzles the will, 
And makes us rather bear those ills we have 
Than fly to others that we know not of." 

We are powerfully attacked as well as fearfully 
exposed. Terrible powers are set in relentless bat- 
tle against us. The onset has been raging along 
all human ages. There is no acre but is strewn 
with the dust of the dead. The slaughter still 
goes on with an awful vigor. 



I20 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



Each day presents scenes of conspiracy, vio- 
lence, looting and assassination. We lift up 
our voices and denounce misrule, Sabbath break- 
ing, lying, thieving, tyranny, imposture, villainy, 
anarchy, socialism, nihilism, infidelity, and go 
home sighing out : " Man's inhumanity to man 
makes countless thousands mourn." But it is 
man's attack by the devil and his armies that 
makes countless thousands mourn." We are at- 
tacked by a deeper and more tremendous enemy 
than that of man. We are attacked by crafty, 
cruel fiends, countless in number, measureless in 
strength and subtle in tactics. If the source of evil 
were in man alone, I would like to take a contract 
to evangelize this world, inside the limits of the 
present century. 

But, beside every drunkard is an invisible fury, 
urging him on to drunkenness. At the ear of every 
thief is a viewless demon, whispering vile encour- 
agement. At the right hand of every murderer is 
an unseen assassin, spurring him forward to blood. 
In every implement of vengeance is an imp of woe; 
in every dirk of death a demon. 

These are the hidden marauders that have been on 
a raid round this world from the days of Adam. 
Now appearing as the accuser of good men as in 
Job : then as the tempter of the very Son of God ; 
then as the deceiver, as in the Gospels; and murderer 
as in John ; then as the prince of the power of 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



121 



the air, " as in Ephesians, then as the great 
red dragon, in Revelations. Notwithstanding 
this, there are some who say satan is much 
allayed of late. In the somewhat inelegant 
though expressive language of a Western poet : 

" They say he doesn't go round about as a roaring lion now, 
But whom shall we hold responsible for the everlasting row? 
Some one there ought to be to cast the blame upon; 
For simple people want to know who carries his business on." 

The devil still carries his own business on. He 
and his hosts are invisible and immaterial, and 
therefore less liable to repulse. The hosts against 
whom Washington and Grant fought were beings 
they could see and hear. These generals could 
send out cavalry to reconnoiter the enemy. They 
could shoot, sabre, bombard and cannonade them- 
But here is a ghostly army, venerable in age, terri- 
ble in tactics, formidable, fierce, pitiless, whom, we 
cannot see or hear. We feel the ever on-rolling 
battle tides surging in stormful strife against our 
breasts. But alas, we cannot without the telescope 
of truth see the enemy's right, left nor centre. In 
the light of our textual telescope glance at these 
horrible hosts : 
♦ I — We wrestle with principalities," o'pja'? " 
governments. Jesus himself called their chief the 
prince of this world,'' and this prince has his legions 
grouped into the cohesive discipline of infernal 



122 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



governments. Governments of great unity, effi- 
ciency and persistence ; governments arranged to 
produce the greatest sin, suffering, disaster ; gov- 
ernments that plan and fight night and day for the 
destruction of our race; governments so interlaced 
and interdependent that they strike together as 
one man. And how shall that offender escape 
on whose track are even human governments. 
What defaulter could escape the combined govern- 
ments of Europe, Asia, Africa and America? Much 
less shall that man escape after w^hom are the gov- 
ernmental hosts of Apollyon the prince of pandemo- 
nium, who wears upon his gory belt the scalps of 
murdered millions. [Cries, God have mercy !] 

II — But we are attacked not only by governments 
many but by " f^oi;o'z<a'? powers " mighty. In 
every nation it is the powers that give meas- 
ure to governments. To measure the power 
of the American government you must measure 
the powers of the American people with all 
their modern improvements. The force of over 
60,000,000 people is in every soldier's bayonet, 
policeman's baton and detective's badge. To 
measure the strength of the infernal legislations 
you must measure the strength of all Demondom. 
Originally of great power, indeed, next to God 
himself. They have practised on Egyptians, Jew^s 
and Christians. They made short work of Job's 
family and property, and by their modern improve- 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



123 



ments of rum and rascality can make short work of 
the best of you. As telegraph, telephone and 
photograph in the hand of a nation speedily capture 
a culprit, so the fine arts of modern fiendishness, in 
the hand of our enemies speedily waylay the stout- 
est saint and doom the most defiant sinner. For 
it is powers working with governments against 
which we have to contend. 

Ill — But this is not all ; these plundering powers 
and governments are the Ko^fAOKparopai rov 
^Horovg rov aic3ro5 rovrov rulers of the darkness 
of this world." They have a monopoly of darkness ; 
they robe themselves in it ; they fight furiously by it ; 
it is their chief instrumentality of success. If we are 
going rightly they turn the darkness on to make us 
believe we are going wrongly. If wrongly they 
dissipate it to assure us we are going rightly. 
If we are in the narrow path they fill it with gloom 
and groans. If in the broad and downward, they 
glaze it with the glare of a terrible fascination. 
Darkness, dread and drear is the empire of Satan. 
And if he could continue it he could make the 
world void, lifeless, tenantless, a lump of death, a 
chaos of hard clay, fit for the final conflagration. 
Light is what we need ; without it we cannot see 
who, where, nor why, our enemies are. When 
Greeks invaded Troy 

" The prayer of Ajax was for light 
Through all that dark and desperate fight." 



124 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



But demons, no light give to man. They soothe 
him under the dire night shade of sin; they sing 
him to quietude, under the Upas tree of asphyxia- 
tion, till dead in trespasses ; blind to consequences ; 
deaf to entreaties ; oblivious to responsibilities ; the 
fires of judgment are forced from the hands of an 
angry God ; the black angels laugh ; the doomed 
soul shrieks : " I am tormented in this flame.'' 
[Cries of God help.] 

IV — These principalities, powers and rulers of 
the darkness not only slay in the realm of gloom, 
but they sally out and up to loftier places. Our text 
says Ave Avrestle with nvEVjxarina ri^z 7tori]pia<i, 
av roU eTtovpavioi?" spiritual wickedness in high 
(heavenly) places." The high plac'e of the suc- 
cessful merchant, and he is tempted to make all he 
can, keep all he may and leave all he must to ruin 
his offspring and appease the lawyers. The high 
place of the successful scholar, and he is urged to 
depart from ''the old paths," criticise the Scrip- 
tures, discover some flaw in the word of God, and 
at length have the novelty of finding his soul lost 
forever. The high place of national and municipal 
government. These ambushed fiends crowd into 
Senators' seats and take possession of the very 
fountains of legislation. When Senators and As- 
semblymen vote for the modification of Sunday 
laws, so that God's Sabbath can be looted of its love. 
When they vote for the manufacture and sale of 



m COMPLETE ARMOR. 



liquid death till we have a saloon for every twenty 
male adults; till we manufacture 120,000 prison 
criminals yearly and make 200,000 children annu- 
ally orphans and 80,000 victims yearly for drunk- 
ards' graves ; when our honorable Senators and 
Congressmen legitimize these manufactures of mis- 
ery, anguish, lamentation and woe," let it be 
known that they^do it at the instigation of those in- 
fernal fiends, who came up from the darkness to 
spread vice, violence, anarchy and desolation 
throughout this republic. [Amens.] 

These demonic hordes clamber also up into the 
high places of the church. Having tamed the pulpit 
they attack the pews and quote Scripture for their 
purpose. Be calm, quiet and dispassionate, for "it 
is written, be ye temperate in all things ; '' be mod- 
erately righteous, for behold it is written, Be not 
righteous overmuch." And if there be those whom 
they cannot soothe with the dulling opiates of in- 
difference, then they set the stalwarts against each 
other, and so neutralize their forces under the 
specious plea of contending for the faith delivered 
unto the saints." Some are subsidized with promises 
of fame ; others hushed by pledges of pleasure ; 
others cajoled by appetite and avarice, and still 
others tempted to forgo self-denial to enjoy the re- 
laxing pleasures of floating with the current. A 
detachment of skilful and trusted fiends, are sent 
from the central government to watch the opera- 



126 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



tions of this church. Before I get through Avith 
this sermon they shall have attacked many of 3^ou. 
Behold, then, the most exposed and defenceless race 
assailed by the greatest enem}^ that ever made an 
assault. 

Thus you see the subtle, formidable and danger- 
ous character of Satan and his hosts, the greatest, 
hellish army, led by the most skillful commander. 
Ghostly, invisible, mighty, numerous, drilled, armed 
with compacted governments shrined in a fierce 
array of pitiless powers, ambushed in deepest 
darkness, intrenched in the high places of the field 
and ever on the watch for victims. Busy wxre 
they in the days of Jesus. Out of Mary of Mag- 
dala he cast seven of their number, and from the 
wild man of Gadara, a legion. None of the giants 
of mankind unaided, have ever been able to stand 
up against their awful onset. What a formidable 
array of antagonists is this, to attack a world of 
disorganized, disordered, untrained, unarmed hu- 
man beings: [Terrible !] 

The man never has been born who in his own 
strength could stand before them. Even the 
Son of God appealed for reserves before his 
conflict in Gethsemane. Mere humanity is as chaff 
before the storm in their presence. None of you 
can hope to stand in your unsupported strength. 
The Devil and his hosts can throw you in either 
physical, mental or spiritual wrestling. They can 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



127 



beat you in your business, your churches, 3^our 
homes; anywhere, any way, any time. But, thank 
God, my hearers, there is a panoply here that I pro- 
pose to present, that can make you the conquerors 
of these concentrated ''principalities, powers, rulers 
of darkness and spiritual wickedness in high places," 
even though they were twice as virulent and victo- 
rious as they are. [Hallelujahs.] 

But this is not the armor for the terrestrial 
tournament. It is not the finely devised visor and 
elegantly chased spear of the earthly warrior. It 
is not the foliated armor of the romantic knight, 
nor the embossed shield of the classic Greek ; nor 
is it at all allied to the elaborately flowered and en- 
graven sword and espadon of modern times. ''For 
the weapons of our warfare are not carnal." 
But it is an armor vv^hich has descended from God 
out of heaven ; it is an armor which w^as framed 
by the faculties of an Infinite Thinker, and tempered 
in the heart of an Infinite Lover ; it is an armour in 
which none ever lost life or limb, and in which no 
one ever yet was wounded ; it is an armour in 
which millions of human heroes have marched 
through the lines of the enemy ; taken his trenches, 
driven him from his position and gone on to glory ; 
it is an armour in which you can ensheen your- 
selves and follow the illustrious warriors who have 
gone before you. I now proceed to present a full- 
sized portrait of it in your presence. 



128 



THE SABBA TIC I^iVIGHT 



There stands an exposed, defenceless and attacked 
hero, barbed with the fiery darts of the foe. Ah , 
my bleeding brother, let me put the Divine Armor 
on you piece by piece. Listen, he responds : "there 
is none like that — give it me." 

I — And the first that comes to hand in the armory 
is the girdle of truth, /'stand therefore having your 
loins girt about with truth." The belt of the 
ancient Greeks and Romans was a figure of this 
girdle. The belt was buckled round the loins 
where the upper and under pieces of armour met. 
In this position it gave the warrior solidity of mili- 
tary feeling, and strength and beauty of martial 
movement. And if that leathern girdle did so much 
for the ancients, how much more does the girdle of 
truth accomplish for the Christian? It was Lord 
Bacon who said : 

" No pleasure is comparable to the standing within the vantage 
ground of truth." 

It was the immortal Bryant sang : 

" Truth crushed to earth shall rise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers." 

It was Abraham Coles in his Evangel cried : 

" The power to bind and loose to truth is given 
The mouth that speaks it is the mouth of heaven." 

And the illustrious Milton describes it as 

" That golden key that ope's the palace of eternity." 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



129 



But it remained for the Redeemer Himself to say : 

" If the truth shall make you free ye shall be free indeed." 

The truth of which this Christian hero's girdle 
is made is not mere historic, artistic or scientific 
truth. The belt may be embossed and adorned 
with these, but they never compose it. This belt 
is composed inside by truth of Divine doctrine, and 
outside by the truth of divine expression. The 
seeking penitent finds the truth of Divine doctrine 
in this Holy Word ; 

First, God's creation of a special gem in His favor- 
ite creature, man ; then man's shameful fall by Satan ; 
then his encouragement by promise of salvation ; 
then his salvation sent in Christ ; then his per- 
sonal baptism by the Holy Ghost; then his con- 
viction of personal sin ; then his repentance for 
sin ; next his pardon of sin ; next his regeneration 
of nature ; next his adoption from exile ; next his 
sanctification from sin to holiness ; next his victory 
over Satan ; next his soul's ascension to heaven ; 
next his resurrection from the tomb ; next his re- 
union of soul and body forever ; next his enthrone- 
ment with God, his Father, Christ his Saviour and 
regenerate humanity on the throne of this universe 
forever. 

This illustrious chain he discovers link by link, 
and as he unwarps one end from the georgeous 
heavens and the other from his heaving heart, it 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



melts and fuses into a beautiful, powerful belt of 
expression, which he places round the joints of his 
action. See how it braces him ! His head and 
heart were hanging like the weeping willows ; now 
he feels himself a king, for he reads, and hath 
made us kings unto God.'' And now this girdle 
begins to gleam on every side ; out upon the 
path of duty, in upon the heart of love, up into 
the sky of hope, down into the abyss of woe, 
and in its light the skulking furies fly. [Praise 
the Lord.] 

This is the kind of truth we need, my friends, at 
this time in this city. We need to gird ourselves 
with the truth, concerning affairs as they are. 
Let there be light upon the whole city govern- 
ment; upon the Board of Police, upon the Board 
of Fire Commissioners, the Board of Health, the 
Board of Education, the Board of Aldermen, and 
upon the Mayoralty. Let there be the light of 
truth upon the Monday laws, and upon the 
Sunday laws and upon the saloon laivs, and upon 
the whole fabric of our municipality. [Amens.] 
Let it be known what public men are doing. 
Let every one be brought up under the burning 
truth of eternal justice, and equity, and honor, 
and every one of them who has lived up to 
duty, crown with the laurels of perpetuation ; but 
every one who is besmeared with ignoble com- 
promise and corruption, remand to privacy. 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



[Amens.] Let this girdle of truth swing into 
power the good, and out of power the bad. 
[Amens.] 

The next piece of armor our Sabbatic Knight 
needs is a breastplate. The Emperor Julian, in his 
war with Sapor, was transfixed through the heart 
by a Persian javelin because he rashly rushed 
into the battle without his cuirass. And so would 
the Christian warrior; therefore, let me visit the 
armory again and get thee one. Here it is, the 
breastplate of righteousness,'' This the Sabbatic 
soldier of Christ is to put on and keep on. "Ah ! " 
he says, " There is none like that; give it me." 
[Amens.] 

The Greeks and Romans esteemed their breast- 
plates more important than the girdle. It pro- 
tected the vitals, the heart, the lungs, the breast. 
But the Christian's breastplate is much more im- 
portant to him. It is not formed of vincible and 
brittle steel, but woven inside with evangelic right- 
eousness, which is love, and outside with legal right- 
eousness, w^hich is justice. It is Lord Byron sings 
in Giaour " : 

" Yes, love, indeed, is light from heaven, 
A spark of that immortal fire, 
With angels shared, by Allah given, 
To lift from earth our low desire." 



132 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



It is the illustrious Schiller chants : 

" Love, only love, can guide the creature, 
Up to the Father, Fount of Nature ; 
What were the soul did love forsake her ? 
Love guides the mortal to his Maker." 

And it is Scotland's greatest poet cries : 

" Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, 
And men below, and saints above ; 
For love is heaven and heaven is love." 

Whilst St. Paul, St. John and Jesus yield it the 
palm. And if this love is the inside, justice is the 
outside of this wondrous breastplate. It was the 
broad-minded Burke who wrote, ''Justice is itself the 
great standing policy of civil society." And it was 
the classic Addison who said, " There is no virtue 
so truly great and God-like as justice." Love and 
justice, blending on the hero's bosom, form a 
breastplate fit for any king. Not love and justice 
in books, not love and justice ringing from the 
legal forum, not love and justice fighting like 
furies, amid the thunderous roar of war ; but 
love, sweet love, within the breast, and justice, 
AiKaio6vvi]i^'' glowing from the love-shrined 
heart, making man's vitality secure ; love and jus- 
tice flowing into a righteousness which fives and 
aches for duty, which enters the poor man's breast 
and sets him right with the rich, which covers the 
rich man's heart and sets him right with the poor, 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



13.3 



which balances accounts with a manly grace be- 
tween conservative capital and clamorous labor, 
which is sterling, strong and true ; but is sweet, 
sympathizing, generous, which has a kindness in it 
like that our Saviour ever bore, and a courage, 
too, like that that David donned. This breastplate 
demons cannot stand. It out dazzles the arch fiend 
himself. He cannot pierce it nor hew it down ; 
he cannot reach it any more than a lizard can the 
sun ; it frightens him because he knows it is a 
radiation of Almighty power ; and this is the 
kind of breastplate we need in which to keep the 
Sabbath. When the breast is true and pure, when 
the heart is clean, then are we so charmed with the 
sights of God and good, that we have no time nor 
taste for the sights of sinful pleasure. When Satan 
comes with his black destroying broods, he does 
not find our bosoms like houses prepared for him, 
empty, swept and garnished," but he finds them 
full of Sabbath love, Sabbath joy. Sabbath sweet- 
ness, Sabbath glories. [Amens and hallelujahs.] 
Seeing no chance, he retires and leaves us with 
our happy families, our blessed Saviour, our be- 
loved church, to go on our way rejoicing. On 
with this breastplate, brothers ; on with it fully. 
On with it now, for "There is none Hke that; 
give it me." [Amens.] 



7 



The Sabbatic Knight in Complete 
Armor— Continued. 



I. Sam. xxi, g. — "There is none like that; give it me." 

Eph. vi, 15-20. — " And your feet shod with the preparation of the 
Gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, where- 
with ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the 
wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword 
of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with 
all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching there- 
unto with all perseverence and supplication for all saints; 
and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may 
open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the 
Gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds; that therein 
I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak." 

IN our last discourse we saw that our Sabbatic 
Knight is naturally the most exposed of all 
God's creatures — that he is also more terribly 
attacked than any other being ; but that there is 
,3: ovided for him an armor in which he is amply 
able to conquer all comers ; and upon him we have 
placed two pieces — the girdle of truth and the 
breastplate of righteousness. And now he is so 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT. 



135 



confident he wishes to take the field; but we say: 
" Nay, nay ; not yet ; for, lo, thy feet are unde 
fended. Let us re-visit the Divine armory, and see 
if we can find a suitable foot armature. Ah, yes ; 
here it is; the 'Gospel of Peace,' folded in the 
words ' having your feet shod with the prepara- 
tion of the Gospel of Peace.' " 

When the Greek, with his heavy, hob-nailed 
greaves, marched forth to the fray, full of Athenian 
prowess, or Spartan pride, no spikes nor stones 
could impede his way. No less important are 
these strange war-shoes to the Christian. They 
were long ages preparing. Infinite thought, plan, 
purpose, broke through the heavens from time to 
time ; scintillated amid the rending scenes of 
abandoned Paradise ; shone amid the sublime 
scenes of Egypt, Arabia, Palestine ; broke forth 
in burning bush, thundering law, mighty sage, 
prefiguring pnest and foretokening ceremony — till 
at length, of virgin strangely born, the preparation 
was made, ready for the will and work of man. 
That will and work are to the soul what the feet 
are to the body. Will and work are modes of the 
Spirit's motion. These are the feet to be shod 
W^ith the preparation of the Gospel of Peace. 
Hence the apostle says : '' Put ye on the Lord 
Jesus Christ." When so shod, the Christian hero 
marches forward — over the ramparts of the scep- 
tic, the shallow folly of the seducer, the fierce 



136 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



stockades of the enemy. These shoes of peace 
are Kke those of the Israelites in the Wilderness — 
they wax not old, for peace is ever young. Peace 
is the offspring of power ; therefore, as said 
Charles Sumner, in his " Grandeur of Nations," 
" Let the bugles sound the truce of God to the 
whole world forever." But before those bugles 
sound, the whole world shall hear and heed Christ 
whispering peace from Galilee ; peace to the feet 
that have been dust-stained and far-traveled ; peace 
to the toiler who sobs for rest ; peace with law, 
which has leaped like the live lightning and threat- 
ened to smite ; peace with mankind, whose angry 
passions once we stirred ; peace wath conscience, 
whose guilty gnawings once we felt ; peace with 
sin, self, Satan and hell ; peace with nature and 
with God. 

Shod with such a Gospel of peace as this, the 
Sabbatic Knight can pace the most ragged road, 
tread down the direst difficulties, walk over the 
most formidable enemies. He has the promise : 
Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder ; the 
young lion and the adder shalt thou trample under 
foot." — Psa. xci, 13. Electrified with such a prom- 
ise, our Knight now exclaims: " Let me go, san- 
daled with SLich peaceful strength, and tread down 
every foe," "Nay, nay; not yet; for, lo, thou art 
without a shield." I return to the Divine armory 
and find for him the shield, the glorious shield of 



IX COMPLETE ARMOR. 



faith. Hark ! he fervently exclaims : " There is 
none like that; give it me," and well he may so say. 

In old world museums w^e have seen the shields 
of ancient time. They protected the entire body 
of the soldier, and defended the other segments of 
his armor. Carried in front by the left hand of the 
contestants, they could, by dexterity and strength, 
parry the thrusts of the foe. Full length in size, 
convex in form, lined inside with iron, and outside 
with leather; hence the Hebrew war-cry: "Arise, 
ye princes, and annoint the shield." Any soldier 
who lost his shield was disgraced. The true Spar- 
ton either carried it home, or was carried home on 
it. This distinguished section of armament was 
important, not only to the single soldier, but to 
the entire attacking cohorts. Commanded to 
scale a fortress, they formed into a solid platoon, 
threw their shields over their heads, formed a mov- 
ing canopy, serried and mortised like the roof of a 
house, under which they marched to victory, over 
mural battlements, while stones and javelins and 
darts of fire flew harmlessly away. 

But though these shields were thus of much 
service to the ancients, it was as nothing compared 
with the service of the shield of faith to us. The 
Saviour himself, and Paul, His apostle, lift it aloft, 
as Samuel lifted David above the sons of Jesse. 
As Nfhemiah was the faithful cup-bearer, so faith is 
the unfailing cup-bearer between here and heaven. 



138 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



It makes every promise of Jehovah a fountain of 
J v'-T every experience a wing of upward beating 
a a every oppression a hand to help the true heart 
nigher. Gabriel of the virtues, the sweet subtilty 
of pleasing snares it withers into weakness, and the 
noble graces growing in the heart, it nurtures into 
■a.ght. Notwithstanding all the conquests of faith 
she is aspersed by the slanderous as superstition. 

Sceptics complain of the heavy draft Christianity 
makes on faith. Why not murmur at the heavier 
draft they themselves make upon it. The farmer is a 
believer in nature when he plants the seed ; the scien- 
tist is a believer m nature when he calculates the 
occultation of a star ; for he of all men makes 
the most of faith in nature. Darwin was a believer 
in nature when he wrote the " Origin of Species." 
He had faith in his theory, but he could not 
prove it, and he confessed he couldn't. Who 
knows that nature will act to-morrow as she does 
to day ? Yet merchants who send their ships to 
sea ; corporations who send their trains ahead ; 
parents who spend their fortunes to educate their 
sons, all do so by faith. Take faith out of the 
common affaii's of society and the civil commercial 
scientific fabric would fall to pieces ; the pioneers 
of progress would re-call their pickets and humanity 
recede to barbarism. This all acknowledge. If, 
then, I find no fault with you for trusting nature, 
and carrying on the proper business of the world 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



139 



by faith, why find fault with us, for trusting Him 
who fashioned nature and is infinitely more con- 
stant and true than she — Him, of whom Nature is 
but the creature ; Him, " with whom there is no 
variableness; neither shadow of turning." Once 
more : " The wider the connections you make the 
higher you rise, and the higher you rise the wider 
your connections." With physical sight and 
mental effort I can make but very limited connec- 
tions ; I can make more than a flower, a tree a bird ; 
but still I cannot think anything back to its begin- 
ning, or forward to its finish, points of interrogation 
and ciphers of bewilderment beset us after we go a 
little way back, or out, or forward into anything." 
It was Byron who justly said that " Science is but 
an exchange of ignorance for another kind of igno- 
rance. Chemistry takes a drop of water and re- 
solves it into two elements, and gives us two myste- 
ries where we had but one. Science cannot bring 
us to the end of things, she only shifts the difficulty 
a step farther back." In these matters the world is 
little farther along today than when Sappho sang 
and Plato dreamed. 

But right here where thought is foiled I see a 
conveyance ready for every hero who will venture 
out. It demands the highest heroism of the heart, 
the mightiest enterprize of the intellect, that con- 
veyancer is the living adventurous shield of faith. 
Now, he who casts himself most fully into it will 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



be carried farthest out and so farthest up. B3' it 
Columbus pushed ph3^sically farther out than any 
man in his time, and God and man do join to lift 
him highest up. Cowards refuse to venture out 
and the structure of this universe refuses to let them 
up. The shield of faith I have for you will carry 
you out to Calvary and then up to Creation's 
Capital. 

This Faith breaks down every difficulty, over- 
leaps every barrier, removes mountains, bridges, 
chasms, and makes all things possible to him who 
has it. No wonder Bailey said in his Festus," 
" Faith is a higher faculty than reason ; " No won- 
der Milton sang in his " Comus : " 

" O welcome pure-eyed Faith 
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings." 

Faith which at first is but a shield from the fiery 
darts of the devil becomes the flaming chariot on 
which my hero rides out to meet Jeshurun's God. 
It becomes the glorious chain, that links him to the 
Infinite ; it becomes the beautiful builder of the 
light pontoons across the gloom}^ gulf of death and 
lands the soul safely on the other shore. The faith 
we all need is, such as that for which William Bath- 
urst sighed when he sang : 

" O for a faith that will not shrink 
Though pressed by every foe; 
That will not linger on the brink 
Of an}' earthly woe. 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



141 



That will not murmur nor complain 

Beneath the chastening rod; 
But in the hour of grief and pain 

Will lean upon its God. 

A faith that shines more bright and clear 
When tempests rage without; 

That when in danger knows no fear, 
In darkness feels no doubt. 



That bears unmoved the world's dread frown; 

Nor heeds its scornful smile; / 
That seas of trouble cannot drown, 

Nor Satan's arts beguile. 



A faith that keeps the narrow way- 
Till life's last hour is sped; 

And with a pure and heavenly ray 
Illumes a dying bed." 



Our Sabbatic Knight exclaims: And now I can 
surely go armed with faith's great glorious shield." 
Nay, nay, not yet ; there is nothing on thy head. 
And if thou get no head-piece thou will have to 
keep parrying with thy shield to defend thy head. 
Let us go back to the armory and see if we can find 
a head-piece of defence. Here it is : TrepmeqjaXcxLav 
rov (joDTijpLov The Helmet of the Salvation." In 
foreign armories we have seen specimens of these 
helmets from which St. Paul takes the figure. They 
were made of the finest steel, inlaid with gold, sur- 
mounted with plumes and provided with brazen 
flaps to protect the face in action. The warrior 



142 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



had little fear for the safety of his head, knowing- 
that the missile of the assailants, would glide harm- 
lessly off his head-piece of defence. 

But, however much the ancients gloried in their 
helmets, they were worthless compared with the 
helmet of salvation. By Thess. v, 8, we learn that 
this helmet is the hope of salvation." Highest 
praises of hope have been sung : 

" Auspicious hope in thy sweet garden grow, 
Wreathes for each toil, a charm for every woe." 

So sang Campbell. 

" Hope, like the gleaming tapers light 
Adorns and cheers our way; 
And still as darker grows the night, 
Emits a brighter ray." 

So sang Goldsmith. 

" True hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings, 
Kings it makes gods and meaner creatures kings." 

So spake Shakespeare. 

"And as in sparkling majesty a star 

Gilds the dark summit of some gloomy cloud. 

Brightening the face of heaven afar; 

So when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud. 

Sweet hope celestial influence shed. 

And weave Salvation's helmet round my head.' " 

So warbled Keats, 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



143 



" Hope springs exulting on triumphant wings." 

So caroled Burns in his Cotter's Saturday 
Night." 

But, however adventurous flights the poets have 
made in eulogizmg hope, yet none of them have 
dared to call it ''the helmet of salvation." This 
was reserved to the inspired conceptions of the 
Great Apostle. It is a fitting finish to the defensive 
armor, the belt, breastplate, gospel of peace and 
glorious shield. It heartens the hero into a hope 
which flashes through all the faculties of his 
head, and circling protects them like a helmet of 
deliverance. 

Hopelessness is the mother of despair, but hope- 
fulness of action and energy, the hope of salvation 
surpasses all earthly hope ; the severities of nature, 
the unexpected disasters of time shatter secular 
hopes, and poor disappointed humanity goes bereft, 
blinded and mangled to its grave. There are three 
things that have always blighted earthly hopes : 

Firsts forgetfulness. How frequently do friends 
forget, though enemies seldom fail to remember. 
But God will never forget. He says : " Behold I 
have graven thee on the palms of my hands and thy 
walls are ever before me." Men lose hope and 
heart by the faithlessness of others. But this hope 
of salvation never can be lost because of the 
unfaithfulness of our God. " His counsels of old 
are faithfulness and he has betrothed us in faithful- 



144 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



nesSo" Inability, too, to maintain promises shatters 
secular hopes. But Jehovah is never unable to 
complete His contracts Power belongeth unto 
God." Our text indicates that it is not only the 
hope of salvation, but the helmet of salvation we 
are to take. This means that we may not only 
have the hope of, but the crown of salvation itself. 
Salvation from the two great pillars in the temple 
of our modern Dagon — avarice and appetite ; sal- 
vation from the subtle spell of every enticing sin ; 
salvation from the humiliation of defenceless ex- 
posure ; salvation from Satan's victories over us 
by the concentered attack of his governments, 
powers, rulers of darkness, spiritual wickedness in 
high places ; salvation from lurking, misgiving and 
gloomy fear ; salvation from the clamoring crimes 
and raging sins to which we may long have been 
subject ; salvation in love, joy, peace, gentleness, 
goodness, meekness, temperance, charity and chas- 
tity ; salvation from every evil, and salvation to 
every good ; salvation so deep, broad, high, that 
like God's universe, we cannot fathom its grand- 
eur ; a salvation so complete that it lifts from hell 
and enthrones in heaven. Let me go now to the 
fray. Nay, nay ; not just yet ; one more weapon. 
And now we have seen, though by nature we are 
terribly exposed and by Satan powerfully attacked, 
yet by grace we are gloriously defended. But 
man is too mighty in possibilities to rest in a mere 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



145 



armature of defence. He can rise to the majesty 
of attack. But as I survey the heavenly hero we 
have before us, he appears with no aggressive 
weapon. Let us finally re-visit the armory and 
see if we can find him one. " ri-jv /uaxaipav rov 
Trv^vjiaToi u EGTL pi]fAa Oeov" "the sword of the 
Spirit, which is the Word of God." As David 
said to Ahimelech concerning the sword of Go- 
liath, " There is none like that ; give it me." So 
saith this Sabbatic Knight. I have seen 250,000 
swords framed into a flume in the Tower of London 
for the Prince of Wales. A million swords have 
flashed o'er the landscapes of this lovely land, and 
billions of them have shimmered round the world. 
But of all swords that have glittered in the sun, 
there is none to be compared with " the sword of 
the Spirit, which is the Word of God.'' It 
emerged from the shroud of time, long ere Homer 
tuned his lyre or Virgil his lute. More antique 
than the Zendavesta, the Veda, the Sagas, the 
classics, it was the first in the field. Its authentic- 
ity is burned into its blade, for it bears the interior 
marks of having been formed by an Almighty 
Intellect, and presented by an Almighty Giver. 
Its unity is complete as that of the sphere, for all 
its parts work together for the production of the 
greatest efficiency of the whole. Its proposition 
is the sublimest that ever reached a human ear, for 
it proposes to save the world from sin, and make 



146 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



the bugles sound the truce of God to the whole 
world forever. Its reserve force, is the most mar- 
velous, for when men thought they had shattered 
it into atoms and buried them too deep for disen- 
tombment, lo ! in still sublimer grandeur it rose 
from its grave and commanded the amazed atten- 
tion of mankind. Its adaptability is most com- 
plete, for it brings to the panting Christian mercy 
or might, just as he may need, v\^hether he be a 
plebian, wearing the fustian of poverty, or a 
patrician, wearing the purple of royalty. It is 
quick in its movements as lightning, and loud in its 
detonations as thunder. It is powerful as gravita 
tion and sharper than any double-mouthed weapon. 
It cuts off the soul from its sources of sorrow, and 
severs it from the springs of transgression. It 
cleaves a course of conquest for the immortal 
spirit, and before its glittering, ponderous point, 
the gates of hell close up and of glory open fly. 
It deals not chiefly with outward villain}', but 
with inner vice, and penetrates till it finds the 
heart, and holds it up as the traitor, from which 
the vices flow. It trenches upon the ideas of the 
head and affections of the heart, reducing them 
first to harmon}^ and then to heaven. " For the 
Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than 
any two-edge sword, piercing to the dividing of 
soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts 
and intents of the heart." 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



147 



Such is this most illustrious weapon of attack 
you are authorized to take, after you have put on 
the armor of defense. Before that, it would be but 
a dangerous Aveapon in the hand of a defenceless 
child. After you are defensively armed, it becomes 
the most polished and powerful spear. Who can 
enumerate its victories? On a sword justly pre- 
sented to General Grant were graven the names 
of the great battles he had won — Fort Donelson, 
Belmont, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Wilderness, 
but 1 suppose the whole world would not contain a 
record of the victories this sword has won ; it will 
require a whole universe and a whole eternity. A 
great and good Being's word is that great and 
good Being's expression of himself. The word of 
Luther contained the thought, love, hate, life, 
power of Luther, and the word of God moves 
with the thought, the love, the hate, the life of God 
himself. This is what makes him who worthily 
wields it invulnerable as Deity and invincible 
as Divinity. All other swords shall perish ; this 
alone survive. All others shall be vanquished ; 
this alone stand forth the victor forever. 

Here, then, you have the armor defensive you 
are to put on — belt, breastplate, boots, shield and 
helmet. Mere, too, you have your arm of attack — 
''the word of God." You need no other. It is 
omnipotent, on the condition that you take God 



148 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



with it. In the well-known words of James Mont- 
gomery : 

" Behold the Christian warrior stand, 
In all the armor of his God; 
The Spirit's sword is in his hand, 
His feet are with the Gospel shod. 

In panoply of truth complete, 

Salvation's helmet on his head. 
With righteousness a breastplate meet, 

And faith's broad shield before him spread. 

Undaunted to the field he goes. 
Yet vain were skill and valor there, 

Unless to foil his legion foes, 

He takes the trustiest weapon, prayer." 

And so the Apostle closes this resplendent mili- 
tary peroration with these words : Praying 
always with all prayer and supplication in the 
Spirit, and watching thereunto with all persever- 
ence and supplication for all saints ; and for me, 
that utterance may be given unto me, that I may 
open my mouth boldly, to make known the mys- 
tery of the Gospel." This means, that having the 
appointed armor, you are to accompany it with the 
Almighty Leader ; He alone makes these arms 
victorious. The absence of the right commander 
means utter rout and ruin ; His presence, courage 
and conquest. 

On the morning of the 19th of October, 1864, 
the Shenandoah V alley was occupied by two hos- 



m COMPLETE ARMOR. 



149 



tile camps. The Blue Ridge on the east, and the 
Allegheny mountains in the west, made it not only 
picturesque but fertile. Autumn had passed that 
way, and turned the green woods into sheeted gold. 
The crystal rills sang shimmering, like molten 
silver, to the sea. The ripe, rich grain had been 
stacked ; birds of every wing, on their southward 
way, halted for the night on the trees of the lovely 
landscape. The Union troops slept confidently, 
though their General had been on business at the 
Capital. The darkest time of night, just before 
day, enabled the rebel columns to rush stealthily to 
the charge on the slumbering camp. The Gen- 
eral's absence is the cause of that bold and early 
onslaught. When within short range, the com- 
mand flies in whispers along the enemy's lines to 
open fire. The gloom flashed with the crash of 
musketry and the ground reverberated with the 
roar of cannon. A sleeping camp of 40,000 men 
had been surprised with a night attack while their 
commander was absent. They rose, rushed to 
arms ; the conquering chieftain was not there to 
lead them, and the incoming tide of relentless and 
rapid battle swept like a whirlwind all before it. 
It was impossible to form or fight ; all they could 
do was die or flv- Panic-stricken and flame-swept, 
the vast host became a mass of fugitives. The 
enemy, knowing the importance of such advan- 
tage, pursued in hottest haste and wildest joy. 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



The whole Union line was a disorganized mass of 
streaming stragglers. It was the greatest victory 
the South had won since Bull Run. Camps, can- 
non and men were captured, anguish wrung the 
hearts of the living, and torture the thoughts of 
the dying. But hark ! There is a little dark-eyed 
man at Winchester, who had heard the artillery 
that morning, but, mistaking it for a reconnoisance 
of his troops, was in no special haste about leaving 
town; but when the thunder of battle waxed 
louder and louder, and nearer and nearer, the fact 
flashed through his mind that his army was at- 
tacked. Springing on his horse, in an instant he 
dashed away like an arrow. Suddenly the streams 
of the pursued and routed, looking along the road 
to Winchester, see a dust-cov^ered speck in the 
distance. On it comes, horse and man. They 
begin to see the outline and hear the gallop. An- 
other moment and they see a black horse, its 
eye blazing fire and his rider's flashing flame. 
With hat waving circles of command, he shouts: 
" Face the other way, boys; face the other way; 
we are going back to victory." The General's 
presence is electric. Instantly the fugitives turn. 
The whole field hears the magic word Sheridan ! " 
Despair gives place to determination ; fear to valor. 
Instantly battle line is formed ; every man flies to 
his place, and when the word is given they wheel, 
they form, they charge back over the ground they 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



had lost. On, over the enemy's lines ; on, like a 
tornado, over his entrenchments ; on, over his 
artillery, ammunition, camp and booty, and with 
such cyclonic force swept the valley that Early 
with his troopers never entered it again, and one 
of the greatest victories of the war was won. 

You too, my hearers, in the picturesque valley 
of this world, have been attacked in the night by 
the most pitiless marauders that ever waged a war. 
You have been sabered and cannonaded by the 
"principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this 
world, spiritual wickedness in high places." Many 
of you have been flying before your foes toward the 
mouth of hell; a few more attacks will drive you 
into its burning billows. But lo ! coming down 
from heaven by way of Calvary, I see another rider 
mounted on a white horse. His body is cicatriced 
with wound prints received for you ; his head and 
his hairs are white like wool, as white as snow ; his 
eyes are as flames of fire ; his feet are like unto fine 
brass, as if they burned in a furnace ; his voice is 
as the sound of many waters ; he has in his right 
hand seven stars, and out of his mouth goeth a two- 
edged sword, and his countenance is as the sun 
shining his strength ;" he calls to you to-night : stop, 
turn, form, follow me." We stop, we wheel, we 
form, we follow the white-plumed Sabbatic prince. 
See, see, our enemies flee ; He leads us on over all 
we had lost; on over the redoubts, and baggage 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



and lootings of the foe ; on over the enemies' camp; 
on over all the valley of this world to heaven ; nor 
will he stop, till by successive victories, He has 
swept this earth free from every fiendish invader 
and made it a fitting brilliant for the diadem of His 
Father. [Hallelujahs and glories.] 

And now, my brother knight, you need delay no 
longer ; go forth in thy armor with this heavenly 
Leader; and if ever you should get discouraged, look 
at the long line of illustrious Sabbath Saints who 
have overcome the greatest fiery trials, sheened in 
this armor and under this Commander. Clad in 
this armor and under this Leader the three Hebrew 
heroes emerged from the flaming fiery furnace, nor 
felt the smell of flame ; Clad in this armor and under 
this Leader, Daniel slept as sweetly on the Babylo- 
nian lion's mane as on a pillow of down ; Clad in 
this armor and under this Leader, Poly carp, when 
the flames of martyrdom rose ruthlessly about his 
venerable form, exclaimed : " O Father, I bless 
thee that thou hast thought me worth}^ to ob- 
ain a portion among the martyrs ; " Enfolded in 
this armor and inspired by this Leader, Tele- 
machus, the hermit of Syria, came from his cave 
to Rome; flew into the midst of the Colisseum ; 
threw himself between the gladiators; and with his 
life blood washed out the great heathen stain that 
emperors could not efface, and that polluted the 
church in its capital ; Enfolded in this armor and 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



inspired by this Leader, Ambrose, the illustrious, 
saved the church from the Arian Empress, forbade 
the blood-stained Emperor, Theodosius, to approach 
her altars until as he had followed David in his 
sin, he had also followed David in his sorrow. Girt 
with this armor and guided by this Saviour, John 
Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed, shouted from the 
metropolitan pulpit in Constantinople, as a reproof 
to the worldly Empress who had menanced him : 
"Again Herodius dances, again she demands the 
head of John in a charger," and when in exile, be- 
neath the most flaming darts of persecution, he re- 
peated his accustomed words : Glory be to God 
for all things." Girt with this armor and guided by 
this Saviour, Athanasius suffered severest persecu- 
tion for forty years from the Arians and the emper- 
ors, because he upheld the doctrine ol the Holy 
Trinity ; but instead of being crushed he towered 
up like a giant amid the desertion of friends and 
the fury of foes, crying : If no man will stand by 
me then Athanasius contra imnidunir 

Armed in this armor, and saved by this Saviour, 
Boniface refused high church honors, penetrated 
the wilds of ancient Germany, cut down the great 
oak of Thor, built a church of the wood, baptized 
100,000 souls in the name of the Trinity, and still, 
in his seventy-fifth year, went forth to convert 
other tribes, and build other churches, till he met 
martyrdom with a noble joy. [Hallelujahs.] 



154 



THE SABBA TIC KNIGHT 



Armed in this armor, and saved by this Saviour, 
Ehzabeth of Hungary, daughter of a king, wife 
of a duke, in widowhood gave all she had to the 
poor ; dwelt among them as their servant, for the 
privilege of teaching them the way to, and the 
great love of God. 

Armed in this armor, and saved b}^ this Saviour, 
Rogers, the first English martyr, marched to the 
stake ; rejected with lordly scorn an offer of par- 
don if he would retract, walked with a stout heart 
into the flames, and rejoiced in the fiery baptism 
through which he soared to heaven. 

Armed in this armor, and saved by this Saviour, 
Bishop Latimer, stripped to his shroud, rose up on 
high, as though body and soul had both been re- 
strung by the flames, cheering his companions by 
the sublime prophecy that they should that day 
light such a candle in England as should never 
go out. [Glory.] 

Equipped with this armor, and led by this Lord, 
the Wesleys and their companions struck out from a 
degenerate church, charged on the streets of Eng- 
lish cities sin, death and doom, and against the 
protests of prelates and the fury of mobs, laid 
deep, broad and secure the firm foundations of that 
church which has done so much for multitudes 
present; a church which has recalled the Protes- 
tant hosts to their first principles of progressive 
salvation ; spread such a sentiment of brotherhood 



tN COMPLETE ARMOk. 



as has made Romanism ashamed longer to flaunt 
indulgences and flourish thumbscrews. [Praise 
the Lord.] Revived the Apostolic spirit of mis- 
sions, and sent commissioners among the warlike 
tribes of the world to demand, in the name of 
Jesus, their swords. Given such an impetus to 
science, art, literature and civilization as has 
grouped two-thirds of the populations of the earth 
under Christian sway. 

And what shall I more say, for the time fails me 
to tell of Coke, the missionary pioneer, who crossed 
the Atlantic eighteen times, and finished his illus- 
trious work by giving his body to the Indian 
Ocean, that with liquid lips his very sepulture 
might kiss the shores o'er which his spirit sighed. 
And of Asbury, who in this armor, on horseback 
traveled yearly from Maine to Georgia, mid pierc- 
ing cold and melting heat, and laid not only the 
foundations of the church, but of this Republic. 
And of Garretson, who kindled such lights on the 
banks of the Hudson as shall glow in glory after 
the Hudson has ceased to roll. [Hallelujahs.] And of 
Abbot, who spoke such words in such ways as 
made masses fall as if shot dead before his speech. 
And of Lee, who split up the hard exclusiveness 
of New England's life, and mellowed it beautifully 
with Gospel rays. And of Cartwright, who met 
the westward tide of empire with such sterling, 
manly courage as has seldom been surpassed. And 



156 THE SABBATIC KNIGHT 

of Pitman, who by his prayer amid the Jersey 
pines stayed the clouds till the people of the open 
camp have gone away thrilled by his Gospel mes- 
sages. And of Simpson, another Roderic Dhu of 
Zion, " whose blast upon his bugle horn was worth 
ten thousand men.'' And of Janes, whose piety and 
statesmanship made him the Hildebrand of Meth- 
odism. And of Cookman, whose saintly life and 
exultant death made the church follow his white 
plume to track the halo of his ascent and exclaim : 
My Father, the chariots of Israel and the horse- 
men thereof." [Glory.] And of Inskip, whose 
burning ferver lingers still in the memory of thou- 
sands whom he helped nearer that throne where 
he sits singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. 

Oh, my God, let the glorious armor of these 
ascended fathers be fitted upon us, from head to 
foot, this hour, that we may carry on the wonder- 
ful war, in which they, fighting, died. For great 
are the battles yet to be fought ; grand the tri- 
umphs yet to be won. We cannot stand an hour in 
the fray without this complete armor; but in it, 
one of us cannot, by the concentrated wrath, and 
skill, and power, of all the fiends, be for a moment 
overthrown. With it, we can measure up to the 
unparalleled demands of the day, and confront 
Satan's governments. In it, we can sweep back 
the floods of secularity that are settling in upon 
the church. [Amens.] In it, we can rouse the 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



157 



slumbering indifferentists from their lukewarm and 
perilous condition. In it, we can rally the strag- 
glers, recall the fugitives, and form the whole 
church into solid line of march upon the enemy. 
In it, we can build the dikes and hold back the 
tides of Sabbath-breaking, and gambling, and 
Anarchism, and Nihilism, and Socialism, and 
violence, and rascality, and rum, till the Eternal 
God shall appear, and with a point of his Provi- 
dence pour the whole fuming, roaring, seeth- 
ing, hissing, poisonous mass into the abysmal pit 
together. [Amens and hallelujahs.] 

Come, then, my friends and take this armor and 
put it on. God wants to give it you. It will do 
no good to take it, unless you put it on ; it will do 
no good to put it on unless you keep it on ; it 
will do you no good to keep it on, unless you wield 
it. This armor is not for the camp, but for the 
field ; for the thickest and most murderous of the 
battle. The more it is worn and worked, the more 
it glows and shines. [Praise the Lord.] 

Then take it, wear it, work it, ye young men, 
who will be called to fill the places of these vete- 
rans of God, who in a few short years shall have 
gone up to rejoin their comrades above. [Amens.] 

Take it, wear it, work it, ye young women, who 
need it to make home brilliant and beautiful. 

Take it, wear it, work it, ye men and women now 
in the high noon of life, whose steps henceforth 
8 



SABBATIC KNIGHT 



shall be toward the valley, and before ye grow old 
and gray ye shall have routed hosts of the invisible 
enemy. 

Take it, wear it, work it, ye venerable men and 
matrons, whose sun now sets on the eternal side of 
sixty, and in the wintry hours of your maturer 
years it will continue to be the defense and glory of 
your life below and your passport to the life 
above. [Amens.] 

Take it, wear it, work it, ye unconverted, of 
whatever sex, age, class, and in it ye shall hew a 
way to liberty, life, love and heaven, through the 
thousands of foes who now unseen stand thick 
about you. 

Take it, wear it, work it, ye officers and mem- 
bers of the churches, and it shall make you bright 
and shining in your business, in your homes, in 
your class meetings, in your prayer meetings, in 
your congregations, in your enterprises, until the 
world shall be compelled to see the splendor of 
your arms. 

And ye brothers and Beloved Fathers in the min- 
istry, ye captains of the troops of God, what shall 
I say to you ; I need not say take it, }' e have taken 
it ; I need not say wear it, ye do wear it ; I need 
not advise work it, ye do work; but I do pray 
you keep it untarnished. Let no speck stain j^our 
girdle, no spot dim your breastplate, no spear stab 
your peace, no blemish disfigure your shield, no 
blotch smear your helmet, no monster dull your 



IN COMPLETE ARMOR. 



sword, and no demon cut communications between 
you and your king. And now let us all unite in 
the most solemn determination that in the whole 
panoply of God we will fight until the out-mus- 
tering master, death, discharge us from the field, 
and that when friends ask us how we shall be 
buried, we shall reply like the noble Roslin Barons : 

Bury us with our armor on." 

Armor on, for in it we shall sweep through the 
black barriers of the grave ; armor on, for in it we 
shall rush past the hosts of hell like conquering 
comets past fallen worlds ; armor on, for in it we 
shall pierce swift as light the vastitudes of space, 
speeding past galaxies of flaming spheres to our 
home. [Hallelujahs] Armor on, for in it we shall 
fly through jasper walls, by gates of pearl, along 
golden streets, to take our place on that great white 
throne which overlooks the glassy sea. [Glories.] 
Armor on, for in it we shall be received with glad 
acclaim by angelic cherubim and seraphim, and 
escorted to the right hand of that Saviour who 
shall say : " Welcome, Sabbatic warrior, welcome 
from fields of strife, welcome home ! lay by your 
battered belt and breastplate, your well-worn 
shoes and dented shield, your serrated helmet and 
your well-notched sword ; all, all, lay down, the 
battle now is fought, the triumph now is thine. 
Here angel convoys take the Sabbatic knight,, 
gather his glories round him and show him to his 
friends." [Amens and hallelujahs.] 



The Love of the Sabbath Lord. 



Sunday Morning, August 9, 1891. 
Mark i, 41, — "And Jesus moved with compassion." 

A LL great natures have been moved by some 
^ one overmastering force. In Abraham it 
was faith ; in Moses, law ; in Josiah, courage ; in 
Isaiah, prophecy ; in Alexander, Csesar, Napoleon, 
ambition, but in Jesus it was the new energy of 
love. He moved with compassion." And this 
love of Him Avas adapted to every sufferer. Was 
there a distressed demoniac in the Synagogue ? His 
love stopped the high strain of his discourse and 
cast out the demon; was Nain's noted widow^ in 
agony and tears bearing her only son to the dark 
consignment of the early grave? His love leaped to 
the spot and said : " Young man, arise ;" did Mary 
of Magdala 

" Sit and weep and with her untressed hair, 

Still wipe the feet she felt so blest to touch ? 
His love wiped off the soiling of despair 

From her sweet soul because He loved so much." 

Were His disciples paralyzed with dread in a 
tempest? His love was heard above the hurricane 



THE LOVE OF THE SAHBATH LORD. i6i 



saying : " It is I, be not afraid." [Praise the Lord.] 
Does the favorite daughter of Jairus lie dying ? Pity 
leaped to the Saviour's lips as He thrilled the little 
maiden with, " talitha, cumi." Presses there an 
unfortunate woman, who, in her delicate affliction, 
touched His garment's hem in hope of healing ? His 
kindness, turned and said : Thy faith hath made 
thee whole." Lies there a lame man by Bethesda's 
pool who for many years had been baffled by the 
fleeter throng? His love restores him with the 
words : " Rise, take up thy bed and walk." Comes 
there upon Him in Sidon a frantic woman crying : 
" Have mercy upon me, my daughter is grievously 
vexed with a devil ? " He responds : " O woman, be 
it unto thee even as thou wilt." Writhes there a 
deaf and dumb epileptic in Decapolis? His mercy 
meets the misery with : Ephphatha," be opened. 

Begs there on the streets of Jerusalem a born- 
blind outcast? His love turns into an Almighty 
oculist, and gave the poor man vision. Stand there 
afar off ten lepers in a community of wretchedness, 
echoing that harsh, dry plaintive cry, unclean, 
unclean," to warn the wayfarer? He halts, looks, 
calls, " go show yourselves to the priest," and as 
they went they were released from their infecting 
degradation. Meets He a woman bowed double 
for eighteen years ? His compassion said ; ''Woman, 
thou art loosed from thine infirmity." 

Do the sisters of Bethany weep in the paroxysms 



1 62 THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 



of a hopeless sorrow, exclaiming : Lord, if thou 
hadst been here our brother had not died ? " He 
stills their despair with, " Lazarus, come forth." 

Are there here this morning any who feel afflicted 
and cannot find a Comforter? Is there one dis- 
tressed with low and evil spirits? Remember the 
demoniac of Capernaum and apply for freedom. 
Is there a widow in tears over the departed ? Re- 
member her of Nain and apply for pity. Are there 
tempest-tossed and storm-beaten ones? Think 
of the hurricane of Galilee and appeal for calm. Is 
there a father mourning the spiritual or physical 
sickness of his child ? Think of Jairus and trusting 
plead for healing. Is there one faltering at the 
pool (the Church) and cannot venture in? Call to 
mind Eethesda and come in for blessing. Is there a 
mother here who mourns the affliction of a daughter? 
Reflect on the Syro-phenician and hear the Healer 
say : " Be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Is 
there a mute Christian here who cannot talk 
in meetings? Recall Decapolis and hear the 
" Ephphatha." Is there a man here who cannot 
see into the system of salvation? Recall the blind 
beggar of Jerusalem, and hear Jesus say: ''receive thy 
sight." Are there here those who are so conscious 
of the degrading disease of sin that they stand afar 
off and crv : " unclean, unclean ? " Think of the ten 
lepers and hear Jesus say : " Go show yourselves 
to the priest." Is there a woman here bowed down 



THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 163 



with trouble ? Think of her who was bowed double 
for eighteen years and hear the words, " thou art 
loosed from thine infirmity." Whatever may be 
your state, whatever your necessity, He who moves 
with powerful compassion, has a blessing which 
exactly fits your case. 

For there was no species of human sorrow, want 
or trial to which His love was unadapted then, 
nor is there now. It was adapted to the poor vic- 
tim suffering the tortures of dropsy ; it was adapted 
to blind Bartimeus and his companion in eyeless 
mercy, who rushed headlong, exclaiming at each 
blind bound, " Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy 
on us ; " it was adapted to the rich, but ostracized 
and penitent Zaccheus who, with heavy heart, had 
climbed up into the Egyptian fig tree to see Him 
pass ; it was adapted to the processions that surged 
around him for it, healed their sick and pitied their 
despair ; it was adapted to His disciples whose feet 
it washed, whose minds it enlightened, and whose 
hearts it inspired with such exalted sentiments 
as are found in His valedictory address and His 
great high parting prayer. There is no species of 
human need which His lov^e cannot meet now. 

" For is He not the Saviour still, 
In every age and place the same; 
Has He forgot His gracious skill, 
Or lost the virtue of His name ? " 



No. 



164 THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. | 

"Warm, tender, sweet e'en yet, 

A present help is He; i 

Since faith hath still its Olivet [ 

And love its Galilee." \ 

[Hallelujahs.] 

Furthermore, this love of Christ is adapted to 
the human race, because of its continuity. The 
fortunes that have been shaded, the famihes that 
have been broken, the hearts that have been 
crushed, the nations that have been wrecked, pro- 
claim from all quarters the dire disasters of incon- 
stant love. Through unrequited and unstable love 
the fair face has grown pale, the bright eye glassy 
and dim, the clear mind full of misgiving and 
dread, the sweet and sprightly spirit sombre and 
sad. The true, the good, the beautiful, have been 
by it deceived, and suffering from the blight of 
such deception, gone down to early graves. In- 
constant, freakish, truant love, does its deadly work 
on every hand. It fills the jails with culprits, asy- 
lums with insane, saloons with patrons, and the 
wide world with woes. It draws the mind from 
loft}^ musing, the soul from noble trust, the heart 
from fond affection ; mantles humanity in mourn- 
ing and drenches society with tears. It haunts the 
very soul through all vicissitudes, burdens it with 
tyrannies, degrades it with oppressions, and de- 
vours it with despair. 

Ah I inconstant, truant love, what shall we name 



THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 165 



thee? Men may call thee folly ; I must name thee 
demon. Nor is it the inconstancy of human love, 
flowing from sources of deception, that forces to 
despair ; but this inconstancy is often caused by 
the overwhelming- course of nature. The friends 
in whom we delight are taken from us by the in- 
roads of dissolution ; fathers, mothers, sisters, 
brothers, all pass away, and leave no living love 
behind ; the choice and cherished teacher falls be- 
fore our eyes ; the orator, too, that lifts us from 
our sorrows, and plays upon our heart-chords as 
on an instrument, passes away, and we are left 
alone. We all, indeed, are passing ; and amid this 
fluxional existence, where shall we look for cer- 
tainty, whither go for stability, whither look for 
constancy, in love ? 

Rising up midway in the seething sea of human 
time, I see standing amid all changes the Change- 
less One, over whom even death had not dominion, 
"the same yesterday, to-day and forever," loving 
his own ; He loves them to the end. Amid the in- 
constant, constant ever He. [Aniens and glories.] 
Circumstances may change around us, laws be re- 
versed, elements dissolve, knowledge pass down 
the Lethean stream, eloquence grow dumb, and all 
that is dear unto us wax old and wither into dust ; 
yet, there, in the full flushed prime of everlasting 
youth, stands the Eternal Lover, who was the con- 
stant friend of Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus, 



1 66 THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 



and shall be the unflinching friend of every human 
soul who trusts in Him. 

If you doubt, call in the witnesses. Ye brave 
Apostles Peter, James and John, who companied 
with Him, saw Him, heard Him, touched Him ; 
what say ye? With one consenting voice they 
say : " He loved us to the end." Ye Apostolic 
Fathers — Barnabas, Clement, Ignatius, Hermas — 
what say ye? ''Through all changes, changeless 
only He." Ye Church Fathers — Augustine, Athan- 
asius, Cyprian, Cyril, Chrysostom — what say ye? 

He never left us, nor forsook us." Ye martyrs 
of Italy, Bohemia, Scotland, England, France, 
rise in your red robes before us here to-day 
and tell us of the love of Christ. I listen 
for a voice from your dear, dumb wounds, and 
lo, each whispers : " Immutable." [Hallelujahs.] 
I lay my ear to the great orchestra of the Church, 
which voices the experiences of on-sweeping mill- 
ions, and lo, with ever increasing swell comes 
the vox hu7nana of the universal heart, laden with 
the one keynote, " His love is ever the same." 

" O, for this love let rocks and hills 
Their lasting silence break, 
And all harmonious human tongues 
The Saviour's praises speak. 



Angels, assist our mighty joys, 
Strike all your harps of gold; 



THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 167 



And when ye raise your highest notes, 
His love can ne'er be told." 

[Bless the Lord.] 

Living as we are in these ever-changing scenes 
in all seasons of life, we need this Changeless 
Lover. There is, first, the season of youth, 
when the ardent fires of inexperience burn ; when 
young ambition over-vaults itself ; when we are 
prematurely wise and think we know more than we 
ever afterward do learn ; when flattery and cajol- 
ery spread nets for our feet ; when blinded 
passion is strongest and calm-eyed reason weakest ; 
when specious and fascinating temptations without 
respond to plausible and impelling deceptions with- 
in ; when the bloom of the nature is rounding into 
form, and its very loveliness makes it an object of 
betrayal ; then, in this epochal and important time, 
do we need to hear that voice breaking in on us : 
" I have loved thee with an everlasting love." 
Again, when the springtime of our life has safely 
passed and the Summer of our years comes 
on ; when toilsome burdens are to be borne ; 
when skillful plans are to be executed ; when the 
duties of a profession, of commerce, of trade or of 
domesticity, are to be discharged : when the hard, 
pitiless competition of the world is to be met with 
kindness and courage ; when the pressure of multi- 
plex and difficult work strains the nerves, tires the 
muscle and perplexes the brain ; when the battle 



i68 THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 



for success is sore, and hot, and long ; then how 
consoling, cheering and strengthening it is to find 
with us a constant, powerful Friend saying, I 
have loved thee with an everlasting love." [Hal- 
lelujahs.] But the Summer of human life doth not 
long last. We quickly emerge into the Autumn of 
our years. Gray hairs grow here and there upon 
us ; the furrows of care plough more deeply on the 
features ; the step may be more stately, but it is 
less elastic ; the fortunes of life below are pretty 
clearly designated ; the fruit of former years 
begins to be gathered ; the home is established, 
the avocation prosperous, and our secular affairs 
are just about as we want them ; but, alas ! we 
ourselves have begun to change. The fashion and 
the bloom of youth are gradually giving place to 
the appearance and reality of age. Physicians, 
pharmacies, food, exercise, riches, luxuries, cannot 
stay the ever incoming tide of years. At such a 
time, as we look around, we discover nothing that 
lasts. All things tangible to us are temporal, and 
yet, within us yearns the real self, the intangible, 
the immortal self. What can be so reassuring 
under such circumstantial reveries as to look with 
eyes of faith and see one standing by us who has 
never ceased to love us, who will never cease to 
care for us, and who, speaking out of His own 
eternity, saith, " I have loved thee with an ever- 
lasting love ? " [Glories.] 



THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD, 169 



And as it did not take the Autumn long to come, 
so it does not require long- to go. The white Win- 
ter soon approaches ; the eyes are dim and feeble 
now; the gleeful days of youth are gone; the insidi- 
ous inroads of disease (that instrument of death) are 
daily experienced ; the prime of life below is past : 
friend after friend has been called and Ave are left 
alone ; husband, wife, child and companions dear 
have been borne to the grave, whose very shadow 
now casts its gloom upon us. [Tears.] We soon, 
too, must go; we wait but a little longer and then the 
end. Ah, with what a resplendent regnancy of hope, 
with what gorgeous sheen of victory doth the 
venerable spirit clothe itself, when it looks up and 
out and perceives the unchanging Saviour, still 
standing near, awaiting the maturity of our nature 
through the ministry of grace and dispelling all de- 
jections with the words : T am the resurrection 
and the life ; " " He that believeth in me shall never 
die." [Bless the Lord.] 

Through not only the vicissitudes of this life runs 
this love of Christ, but also through the changes 
of death, and meets Ijie disembodied Saint on the 
other shore ; it conducts up through the starry 
spaces, escorts to jasper walls, through gates of 
pearl, along streets of gold and up to that throne 
which overlooks the pavilions, encircled with light 
where saints in an ecstasy gaze and hang on a 
crucified lover. [Amens and glory.] 



1^0 THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 

" Every human tie may perish, 

Friend to friend ungrateful prove; 

Mothers cease their own to cherish, 
Heaven and earth at last remove, 

But no changes can attend 
Our Jesus' Love,'''' 

But this love of our Saviour is not only remark- 
able for its perpetuity, but surpasses all else in its 
scope and capability. The incapacity of human 
love is sometimes as fatal as its inconstancy. 

Two young ladies were swimming in the surf 
of Jersey shore, when the undertow swept them 
outward ; their cries for help mingled with the 
roar of the breakers ; their father and mother were 
watching them from the sand, and the two lovely 
girls were carried out to sea before their pitying- 
parents' eyes — a specimen of the incapacity of 
human love in the presence of emergencies, but no 
emergency can arise which can thwart the power 
of the love of Christ. 

The greater the lover the greater the efficiency 
of His love. This is a fundamental law. The 
love of a great nature is commensurate in power 
with the greatness of that nature. The capacity of 
the love is only limited by the capacity of the 
lover. The nature of the Christ is infinite, there- 
fore His love is boundless. He loves with the 
power of omnipotence ; He is omnipotent, there- 
fore His love is all powerful. 



THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 171 

Henry Drummond has written a clever little 
book on love, " The greatest thing in the world." 
We take a stronger stand and proclaim the love of 
Christ the greatest force in all worlds. Henry pro- 
claims love the greatest thing in time ; we proclaim 
the love of Christ the greatest energy in either 
time or eternity. [Hallelujahs.] 

See its propulsive power. There was nothing 
in either eternity or time could hold back the tor- 
rent of Christ's love to man. It broke through the 
conventionalities of the heavenly eternities and ma- 
terialized itself among the sons of men ; it stayed 
not for public scorn, but rushed against the gather- 
•ing storms of betrayal. Aristocracies trenched in 
the strongholds of a thousand years it faced, 
and policy, diplomacy, hypocrisy and shame it 
bore down before its overwhelming tide ; nor 
did it turn aside for poverty, disgrace and pain. 
[Blessed Jesus.] 

All was ready. The tempest that had for years 
been gathering was about to burst around Jerusa- 
lem. Our Saviour saw the impending hurricane 
of wrath. It was a double storm ; a storm of 
demons and a storm of men. When the time was 
ripe He called His own about Him aad uttered 
His farewell words and instituted His final rites ; 
then plunged into the night. He passed from that 
upper room along the streets, through the golden 
gate, across the Kidron valley into the garden of 



172 THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 

Gethsemane. A stupor of sorrow had thrown His 
disciples into a swoon. 

But there in a secluded niche, beneath a moon- 
silvered olive, He is fighting the battle of the ages. 
Satan had fought Him for forty days and nights in 
the wild wilderness of Quarantania and been de- 
feated. Now He summons all His legions to the 
charge. He knows everything depends on this 
final conflict ; He summons all His battalions and 
cries to His veterans : fight neither with small 
nor great, save only with the King of Israel." For 
hours the battle seems to waver. The King of 
love is dashed again and again to His knees in the 
onset, but finally the last cohort of the enemy rushes 
to the attack and was swept down before the 
prowess of our Conqueror. 

At length the bugle notes of retreat were 
sounded by the foe, and the Son of God, covered 
Avith blood, in great drops falling to the ground, 
came forth from the fray the invincible victor. 
Pilate afterAvard said, Behold the man ! " I now 
say, Behold the God ! But now the human col- 
umns have been organizing. Led by Judas, I see 
a band of soldiers come down from the high priest's 
palace with weapons and torches ; they stealthily 
sweep through the southeastern gate, up through 
the Kidron valley into the garden. Judas desig- 
nates him with a kiss. Such identification was 
needless, as He stepped forth in His robes, exuding 



THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 



blood, and said : " I am He." He accompanies the 
wondering soldiery to the palace ; He maintains 
His attitude of grandeur as the Son of God before 
Annas and Caiphas ; He is conducted at dawn of 
day across the Tyropean bridge from the temple 
platform to the prastorium of Pilate. The Roman 
Governor, after inquisition and scourging, with 
wondering awe brings him forth on the tesselated 
pavement of the porch, and says: " I find no fault 
in Him." The crowd of autocrats, hierarchs and 
Pharisees, whom the noble purity and power of 
his life had reproved and threatened, in a burst 
that Pilate knew not how to quell, cried : " Crucify 
Him ; crucify Him ! " ''I wash my hands of this 
man's innocent blood," said the Governor. His 
blood be on us and on our children," was the clam- 
orous response. 

At length the reluctant, time-serving Governor 
said : " / miles expedi cruccvi " — Go, soldier ; get 
ready the cross." On Jesus, in derision, it was 
laid ; He bore it along the via dolorosa toward Cal- 
vary. The hill, shaped like a skull, at length is 
reached ; the cross is laid on the ground ; the Christ 
is flung upon it ; the sacred hands are stretched 
upon the transverse beam ; the nails are malleted 
through the tender tendons and driven fast to the 
wood ; the Divine feet are pinioned down on the 
perpendicular section ; the great spikes are driven 
through the quivering ligaments and fastened to 



THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 



the tree. Stalwart men now raise the cross with 
its silent, suffering Lord; they carry it to the 
socket in the earth prepared ; they dash it down in 
its appointed cavity, and there through the burn- 
ing hours of a mid-day sun this Lover hung in 
agony. [Weeping.] He would not even dull His 
pangs by the executioner's stupefying potion. But 
the agony of His body was little compared with 
the torture of His soul. No cry of anguish arose 
from those sacred lips on account of physical pain, 
though that was excruciating beyond conception, 
on account of the extreme sensitiveness of his 
finely organized nature ; but there was now a terri- 
ble tempest surging through His soul. He was 
bearing our sins in His own body on the tree.'' 
The sins of all times and of all nations concentrated 
there upon Him ; the sins of the centuries before 
the flood, the sins of the Hebraic times, the sins of 
medieval days, the sins of modern years, the sins 
of ages yet to come, were focusing their virus 
within His sensitive Spirit ; they rush upon His 
holy soul with their venomous sting ; He feels the 
ignominious, incomprehensible torture, and yet is 
still. No mind can enter into the weighty secret 
of His suffering ; and yet He seems impassive 
and calm. But now the crisis comes, the crisis of 
every other crisis — it is the withdrawal of His 
Father's presence. Justice was about to strike its 
final, fatal blow ; a blow which would restore the 



THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 



equilibrium of the moral universe ; a blow which 
would vindicate the government .of God as fully 
as if the whole human race had perished ; a blow 
which at the same time would permit that human 
race to escape by penitence and faith. And when 
justice unsheathed its awful sword and enfieshed it in 
His quivering life, then it was the Almighty Father 
could not look longer upon His son ; then it was He 
withdrew the light of His cheering face, and then 
it was that, treading the wine-press of the wrath of 
Justice alone, the first and last exclamation of 
anguish was wrung from those holy lips : Eloi, 
E-oi, lama Sabachthani " — " My God, my God, 
why hast thou forsaken me?" [Weeping.] 

But that loving Father did not long forsake the 
heroic sufferer. As soon as justice was appeased, 
He returned and looked approvingly upon Him 
and His mightiest achievement, and as Jesus saw 
Him thus approving gaze, He knew the work was 
done, He knew redemption was complete ; and 
then it was that, with a voice that rent the sur- 
rounding rocks. He cried, in all the majesty of a 
conqueror: ''It is finished." Such, my friends, 
was the propulsive power of the love of Christ. 
But this propulsive power is, if possible, surpassed 
by its procuring power. 

This love of Jesus makes all realms contribute 
to the comfort, happiness and delight of His re- 
deemed. It enters the imprisoned chambers and 



176 THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 



treasuries of the earth and orders them to divulge 
their riches ; and so we have the blessings hidden 
in the soil as well as those on the soil ; it opens up 
the treasuries of the snow, the hail, the clouds, the 
seas, the laws of steam, electricity, gravity; it opens 
up and presents the treasuries of the skies, the sun, 
moon and the innumerable abysses of the golden 
galaxies that rule the night. What is science but 
the hand of the Christ helping humanity to higher 
and better things? This love of Christ is so great 
that it also marshals the blessings of all time, and 
treasures of antiquity, the treasures of eternity, the 
treasures of all the infinite past and the infinite 
future. It even lays claim to not only the universal 
riches of space and time, but it opens up all the 
attributes of God the Father, and converges them 
in cooperative action for our good. His love. His 
eternity. His infinity. His omnipotence. His omni- 
presence. His holiness, His activity — all are brought 
into line and beat out sweetly meted measures of 
favor upon every true follower. For as the in- 
spired Apostle swept with his comprehensive 
mind this great theme he exclaims to the Corinth- 
ians; ''All are yours, for ye are Christ's and Christ 
is God's. Sometimes when the mind goes out with 
the lamp of modern science and surveys the vast- 
ness of God's realms, the countless numbers that 
must hang on His providence in other gi^ander 
worlds, we possibly may grow discouraged and feel 



THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 



that we may yet be left alone in the wild uncer- 
tainties of fate ; and so we Avistfully inquire : 

"Among so many can He care, 
Can special love be everywhere ? 
A myriad homes, a myriad ways 
And God's eye over every place? 

My soul bethought of this — 
In just that very place of His 
Where He hath put and keepeth you; 
God hath no other thing to do." 

[Hallelujahs.] 

And still more this love of Christ is so particular 
and personal and minute in the adaptations of its 
power that it turns the whole troops and armies 
of incidental and accidental and circumstantial sor- 
row into blessings. It makes us Glory in tribula- 
tions also : knowing that tribulation worketh pa- 
tience, and patience, experience: and experience, 
hope : and hope maketh not ashamed, because the 
love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the 
Holy Ghost given unto us. — Rom. v, 3-5. It bring- 
eth glory out of gloom ; good out of evil ; joy out 
of sorrow, and death out of life. [Praise the Lord.] 

In this way it verifies the sublime exclamation of 
St. Paul : All things work together for good to 
them that love God." We do not always see what 
is best; what we most desire may be the very 
worst, and hence 'tis best to leave to His sovereign 



178 THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 



sway to choose and to command ; it is best to sub- 
missively and trustfully sing : 

" Not what I wish but what I want 
In mercy Lord supply ; 
The good unasked in mercy grant 
The ill though asked deny." 

[Amens.] 

The love of Christ is so powerful that no coali- 
tion of evil forces can break through it. Human 
enemies may conspire for your overthrow ; satanic 
enemies may sally out upon you by the mj^riad, 
but if you possess the love of Christ, the love of 
Christ possesses you and will take care of you. 
There is nothing in man, demon or nature 
that can harm these love-enfolded souls. You 
can confidently take up the gauge of defiance 
and fling out the gauntlet of challenge. " Who 
shall separate us from the love of Christ? 
Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution, or 
famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? Nay, in 
all these things we are more than conquerers 
through Him that loved us ; for I am persuaded 
that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor princi- 
palities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things 
to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other crea- 
ture, shall be able to separate us from the love of 
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'' — Rom. 
viii, 35-39. [Glory.] In the light of these truths 



tHE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 



we may rest comfortably as to ourselves ; but 
what about the rest of the world? Will the 
clouds never lift ? Will the full flushed day never 
come ? 

The world is passing still, m parts, through the 
murky night and pelting storm, but on all parts of 
the earth the love of Christ is surely rising. 

With a party of pedestrians I passed up the 
Tuckerman ravine, on oui way to the top of 
Mount Washington, New Hampshire. The clouds 
began to gather, the storm to brew ; the live thun- 
der leaped from peak to peak, the livid lightning 
above illumined the way as night came on. Some 
lay down in despair on the cold and sleety rocks, 
and feared the lost path never would be found and 
the long night would never pass. One clear eye, 
now President Reeds, of Dickinson College, 
descried the way, and on we went to the Signal 
Service Hotel, clamped down by iron chains to the 
rocks on the highest peak ot Mount Washington. 
Occupying eastern exposure, we watched for the 
coming day. Long ard lone seemed that weary 
night, for the monstrous clouds enwrapped all in 
gloom. At last a narrow lane of amber hue opened 
up through the inky darkness toward the east ; it 
looked as though Gabriel had dipped his wings in 
glory and flew that way that morn. Then a nar- 
row yellow band marked the horizon ; then a rich 
russet arc, and then a ruddy scarlet flame ; then a 



i8o THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. 



gorgeous golden marge. It looked as if the Jeho- 
vah were coming thither on His throne. Then the 
glorious sun opened his great eye up out of the 
sea, and the battle for the day began. The huge 
leviathans of cloud came rushing from the upper 
sky, driving into the face of the sun to prevent his 
rising ; the huge processions from the valley rose 
and ran into his disk, as if to dethrone the coming 
monarch ; but with the patient, silent light of his 
glittering rays he still shone on, till the whole 
canopy of sky was blue and the whole landscape 
clear, and the last gloomy gorgon died in dankest, 
darkest dell. 

Like unto this, the Son of Love on Gethsemane 
and Calvary, rose amid a tempest full of ire and 
gloom. He rose in a spray of blood that tinged 
the wrath clouds all around ; those clouds still con- 
tinue to battle against His silent shining, but 
still He shines and still He rises, and every 
moment of His shining brings a greater force 
of light and love into this world. [Hallelujahs 
and amens.] In these hearts the monstrous 
gorgons of unbelief, of infidelity, of idolatry, are 
daggered by his spears of truth, and the hour is 
coming w^hen all the nations shall walk in the sun- 
flood of His love. [Amens.] The watchman's 
report in response to the traveler's question is 
being realized : 



THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD. i8i 



" Watchman, tell us of the night, 

Hoiu doth olden promise run ? 
Traveler, o'er yon mountain height 

See that glory-beaming Sun! 
Watchman, does its beauteous ray 

Aught of hope or joy foretell ? 
Traveler, yes; it brings the day, 

Promised day of Israel. 

" Watchman, tell us of the night; 

Higher yet that Sun ascends. 
Traveler, blessedness and light, 

Peace and truth, its course portends ! 
Watchman, will its beams alone 

Gild the spot that gave them birth ? 
Traveler, ages are its own. 

See, it bursts o'er all the earth ! 

" Watchman, tell us of the night, 

For the morning seems to dawn. 
Traveler, darkness takes its flight; 

Doubt and terror are withdrawn. 
Watchman, let thy wandering cease; 

Hie thee to thy quiet home ! 
Traveler, lo ! the Prince of Peace, 

Lo ! the Son of God is come ! " 

Meantime, let us keep marching steadily, firmly 
on. Standing one sunny morning on the Hima- 
layan mountains, I saw an officer operating a helio- 
graph. Going up, I found he was signaling the 
British soldiers, twenty miles away. I asked the 
import of his signal. In obedience to the com- 

9 



f82 The love of the sabbath lord. 



mander," he replied, " I am signaling them forward 
to take the passes of Thibet, which have been block- 
aded by marauders." To-day, as I stand in this 
church, I hold a heliograph within my hand ; it is 
the word of God. I watch for the signal from my 
Commander ; it comes ; it is Forward, and take 
the blockaded passes between here and heaven. 
Forward, and open the passes closed by worldliness 
and dissipation. Forward, and open the passes 
closed by unbelief and Sabbath desecration. For- 
ward and open the passes closed by strong drink 
and licentiousness. Forward, and open the pass 
closed by pride and profanity. Forward, and open 
the passes closed by every sin, that my redeemed 
may come home." I listen, and lo, again I hear 
other cries coming, like a swelling sea, from the 
lofty heights, and it is the myriad voices of 
saints ascended sounding: 

" Forward ! be your watchword, 

Steps and voices joined; 
Seek the things before you, 

Not a look behind: 
Burns the fiery pillar 

At our army's head; 
Who shall dream of shrinking, 

By our Captain led ? 
Forward through the desert, 

Through the toil and fight: 
Jordan flows before you, 

Zion beams with light ! 



THE LOVE OF THE SABBATH LORD, 183 



Forward ! flock of Jesus, 

Salt of all the earth, 
Till each yearning purpose 

Springs to glorious birth; 
Sick, they ask for healing; 

Blind, they grope for day; 
Pour upon the nations 

Wisdom's loving ray. 
Forward, out of error. 

Leave behind the night; 
Forward through the darkness, 

Forward into light ! " 



The Supremacy of Law in the Sabbath 
Sphere. 



Deut. xxxii, 46, 47. — " Observe to do all the words of this law. 
For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life." 



HIS stanza our schoolmasters taught us when 



boys, to illustrate the universality of the law 
of gravitation. This law of gravity is the grip 
of God upon creation, and we cannot take time 
now to explain it. When v^e rise up higher 
than materialities and seek to pursue any one 
branch of law in its differentiating ramifications, 
we find illustration necessary to trace the ob- 
ject of pursuit in its multiform out-branchings 
and operations. After leaving the domain of 
general laws and coming into the realm of 
special, we discover that every particular class of 
creature has its own special laws, so nicely meted 
and adjusted that any violation of them is detri- 
mental to that creature's welfare. 



Sunday Evening, August g, 1891. 



" That very law which moulds a tear 
And bids it trickle from its source. 
That law preserves the earth a sphere, 
And guides the planets in their course." 




THE SUPREMACY OE LAW, ETC. 



The laws of horticulture must be observed, else 
flowers droop and die ; the laws of agriculture 
must ba maintained, else cereals wane and perish ; 
the laws of stock raising must be practised, else the 
herds diminish and degenerate ; the laws of hu- 
manity as given by Divinity must be executed, 
otherwise the race must suffer proportionately with 
the violation of the laws. The Author of law 
deemed this so important that He has not only 
written His law^s within human beings, but has 
furthermore, given them a direct written document 
concerning what they should do and not do ; 
wherefore Observe to do all the words of this law. 
For it is not a vain thing for you ; because it is 
your life." 

One of these life and death laws relates to a sep- 
tenary of our time. It never has been annulled and 
never shall be abrogated in time. It is rooted in 
the very nature of all beings and things, and cannot 
be uprooted without tearing the social, civil and 
evangelistic fabric to pieces. God alone is compe- 
tent to be the Fountain-head of Law. Even Plato 
was able to see that No mortal can frame law to 
purpose ; " Demosthenes was sagacious enough to 
discern that Law is the invention and gift of 
God ; " Sir Matthew Hale affirmed that ''Almighty 
God by an ample foresight foresaw all events and 
could therefore fit laws proportionate to the things 
He made,'' and Thomas Carlyle declared ''The 



i86 



THE SUPREMACY OF LAW 



laws are there ; thou shalt not disobey them, it 
were better for thee not, for penalties, terrible pen- 
alties there are for disobeying." 

This is true of all God's laws, and is therefore 
true of His Sabbath law. In general law is a sys- 
tem of beneficent limitations ; in this Blackstone, 
Hooker, Montesquieu, Johnson and Burke all 
accord. A child can see the reason for these lim- 
itations by law in the natural sphere, and the 
natural is only a projected image of the moral. 
Without legal restriction, trees might grow to the 
stars, whales might grow too large for the ocean, 
elephants for the landscape ; worlds would throw 
off their orderly procession and rush upon each 
other in wild collision. And what is true in the 
physical orders of being in this matter is equally 
true in the moral. Excesses must be curtailed, 
indulgence must be limited, exuberance must be 
restricted ; hence, " Thus far shalt thou go, and no 
farther," must bind every man in his dealings with 
his fellows and his God. The responsible Gov- 
ernor of the natural, the juristic, the moral realms, 
with all their inter-dependence and inter-play, alone 
is competent to declare what His creatures ought 
to do, and not do. His right to rule lies not in 
His will, but in His complete possession. What 
we make we have a right to guide. What God 
creates He has a right to control, especially v/hen 
we know that such sovereign control is the har- 



IN THE SABBATH SPHERE. 187 

mony of the world, and the Divine way by which 
we chmb to affluence and rest. Obedience to the 
law of God is the exit from conflict and care ; dis- 
obedience the door to impingement at a multitude 
of points, and to embarrassment in a mj^riad of 
ways. History, observation, experience, like a 
Divine trinity, demonstrate this. The very severity 
of the law is, therefore, an expression of infinite 
loving kindness, whilst its beatitudes lead on to the 
land of eternal youth. It stands forth before the 
eye of every competent investigator as Holy, 
just and good," and shall so forever stand. Where- 
fore, " Observe to do all the words of this law, for 
it is not a vain thing for you, because it is your 
life." 

Having glanced at the origin and mission of law 
in general, I now come to deal with that part of 
the law that relates to this septenary of time in par- 
ticular. This sacred septenary is as old as the finish 
of creation. We read, " For in six days (eras) the 
Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that 
in them is, and rested the seventh day ; therefore 
the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." 
— Ex. XX, II. As this seventh day (era) is to be 
used as a resting period for the Creator, so the 
seventh of this seventh period, through all its ages 
is to be used as a resting and refreshing time by 
the creature. Strange to say, all creation, except the 
sinner, seems in sympathy with this announcement. 



i88 



THE SUPREMACY OF LAW 



Clip off a piece of steel from the block, watch it 
a moment throug-h the microscope, and you will 
see that the particles have been disturbed: watch 
another moment, and you discover that they beg-in 
to readjust themselves as soon as you give them 
rest. This is necessary to restore integration and 
cohesive equilibrium. The same is true of the 
whole material fabric of the earth, and of all things 
in it and on it. The soil, as every agriculturist 
knows, needs rest to continue productive, and 
every seven years is a boundary, over which few 
farmers wisely go before they return it to fallow- 
ness. The Children of Israel were ordered to let 
the whole land lie fallow at the end of the square 
of seven — that is, at the end of every forty-ninth 
37ear — the fiftieth year was to be a year of utter 
land rest ; and so long as they observed this, the}^ 
had a year of jubilee. This sacred number seven 
runs like a line of gold through many historic 
dealings of God with His people, as recorded in 
the Bible, and comes forth most conspicuously in 
the Apocalypse with which the Great Book ends. 

The seven stars in His (Christ's) right hand, 
which are the seven churches ; the seven seals 
opened by the slain Lamb ; the seven thunders 
detonating ; the seven angels sounding their trum- 
pets and pouring out their seven vials upon the 
earth." Symbolic, doubtless, of some great mys- 
terious methods of adjustment which the Father 



IN THE SABBATH SPHERE. 



189 



gives us but hintings of here and there, but which 
are yet to be unfolded when man becomes so saga- 
cious by law-keeping as to read the archives of the 
Divine jurisprudence. [Amens.] 

And we are not without demonstration by ex- 
periment of the high utility of the observance of 
this septenary law upon even the animal crea- 
tion. During Sir Robert Peel's time, an hundred 
horses were worked in England for ten months 
annually, without regard to Sabbath rest, and then 
allowed to rest two months consecutively. An- 
other hundred horses, at the same time this test 
was made, were wrought six days in the week, at 
the same kind of work, so as to make the test 
equitable, and then rested on the seventh. And 
what was the result? That result was two-fold; 
first, the horses that wrought six days a week and 
rested on the seventh, were in much finer condi- 
tion to go on working, and second, they did one- 
ninth more work than the others. The same Sab- 
batic law has been tested by cattle drivers from the 
far west, and the testers have in every instance 
found that the droves that rested on the seventh 
day arrived sooner and in better condition at their 
destination than the droves that paid no regard to 
the wSabbath. Thus it is seen that the septenary law 
of rest is interwoven with the whole fabric of 
materialistic and animal life. 

Wc now approach its application to and influ- 



igo 



THE SUPREMACY OF LAW 



ence upon the human being, for whom all other 
creatures were made. Is he an exception? Can 
he rise above this law, and pay no heed to its dic- 
tates, with impunity ? The human creature is no 
exception, and this has been demonstrated so 
often and so satisfactorily, that if it were not for 
the army of impingements and impingers that 
rise up around us, it would not be necessary to re- 
demonstrate it. 

The English Parliament in 1832 (the same year 
the great political enfranchisement took place), 
formed a committee, of which Sir Robert Peel was 
chairman, to determine by actual experiment 
whether men who labor six days in the week are 
really better off than men who work seven. The 
test was made on two thousand men, for a number 
of years, who worked seven days in the week, each 
man receiving double pay on Sunday. What fol- 
lowed? Physical deterioration and spiritual de- 
moralization. 

That all ought to work six days in the week 
every industrial economist will admit. That all 
ought to rest one day in the week every philan- 
throphic economist cannot deny. The human 
being is constructed on principles as mathematical 
and as minute as any machine ever invented. 
He is made to run six days in seven, then rest; 
and all experience proves that when he runs 
more than that, at either manual or mental labor, 



jn the sabbath sphere. 



he violates, injures and frequently destroys him- 
self. 

Several years ago, in one of my pastorates, on a 
Sunday morning, I observed a large black-eyed, 
well-dressed, thoughtful-looking, but haggard- 
featured man, a few pews from the pulpit. I ob- 
served him specially for his imposing personal 
appearance and profound attention. He came that 
evening, and for several Sundays following. Aware 
he was not one of my own people, I began to think 
b}^ this time of a personal interview. Accordingly, 
at the close of the service I stepped down, and was 
very graciously received. The result, as follows : 
I am a New York merchant, and have for years 
been employed on Sunday. My nerves began to 
give way, and my health, too, so I resolved to 
stop before I committed suicide. I found it impos- 
sible, however, from long habit, to keep my 
business from haunting me, even at home on Sun- 
day. My wife said if I came down and heard you, 
you would give me something else to think about. 
I came, found her advice salutary; and so have kept 
coming, and I am happy to say I am now out of 
the doctor's hands, and quite myself again, and so 
here we are, the whole seven of us (pointing to 
his family), delighted to know we have found out 
how to spend Sunday." 

That man lost his overworked, pensive, despairful 
appearance, and became one of the finest looking 



192 



777^ SUPREMACY OF LAW 



and one of the kindest-hearted men I ever saw in 
any part of this planet, and his business, his family 
and his soul prospered marvelously by the change. 
It would be easy to add many more instances of 
the advantages of obeying this septenary law that 
have in my brief and limited life come under per- 
sonal notice. But I will let others speak. Here is 
Sir Matthew Hale, who affirmed he prospered dur- 
ing the week day in proportion as he kept Sun- 
day ; here is William Wilberforce, the philan- 
throphic emancipator of shackled millions, w^ho said 
his mental vigor and persistence were ascribable to 
Sabbath rest. 

On the other hand there come to us from all 
quarters the sad results of disregard of the Sabbath 
by earnest and otherwise admirable workers. There 
is Sir Humphrey Davy who, through brain weari- 
ness, sleeplessness, palsy, apoplexy and death, was 
obliged to forego his splendid career because he 
would work on Sunday. Here is Hugh Miller, the 
giant of the rocks, who was so devoted to his geo- 
logic science, that he thought he could not spare 
Sunday, and the results were madness and suicide. 
Nor need I detain you to describe Castlereagh, Eng- 
land's greatest Minister, and Cavour, Italy's grand- 
est statesman, both of whom were cut off, the for- 
mer by suicide, the latter by overwork, because 
they insanely insisted that they could not spare the 
seventh of time for restful worship. 



IN THE SABBATH SPHERE. 



193 



The Germanic Government itself has been look- 
ing into this question, ^' The effect of Sunday toil 
upon the people ? " The investigation occupies 
1,000 pages. Four hundred industrial representa- 
tives were brought to the dock to testify with thou- 
sands who had worked on Sunday, and the result 
of it all is, that from their evidence the Holy Day 
had degenerated into a holiday, and then into a 
secular day, and then into a toiling day, and finally 
into a damning day, through whose ministries of 
destruction the people are falling into drunkenness, 
debauchery, infidelity and atheism. 

American citizens, how great reason you have 
for gratitude that this sacred septenary, that is 
evidently a part of the web and woof of things, has 
never been so perversely prostituted by our best 
and loftier statesmen and soldiers. 

Washington, the father of our country, issued 
the following order to his army, 1776: " That the 
troops may have an opportunity of attending pub- 
lic worship as well as to take rest after the fatigue 
they have gone through, the general in future ex- 
cuses them from fatigue duty on Sundays. 
We can have little hope of the blessings of heaven 
upon our arms if we insult it by our impiety and 
folly." 

Abraham Lincoln, who, with the boldness of his 
strategic pen, clove asunder the whole system of 
Southern slavery and wiped away one of the great- 



194 



THE SUPREMACY OF LAW 



est, foulest, political stains that deformed this com- 
monwealth, in 1862 issued this order: ''The Presi- 
dent, Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, 
desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the 
Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and 
naval services. The importance for man and beast 
of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred right 
of Christian soldiers and sailors of becoming 
deference to the best sentiment of a Christian 
people and a due regard for the Divine Will, 
demand that Sunday labor in the army and navy 
be reduced to the measure of strict necessity. The 
discipline and character of the national forces 
should not suffer, nor the cause they defend, 
imperilled by the profanation of the day or the 
name of the Most High." 

These are but samples of a host of stately quota- 
tions that might be made to prove that ours is by 
its laws, its usages, its history, not a Sabbath-viola- 
ting, but a Sabbath-keeping nation. The Legislature 
of every State in the Union, with one exception, has 
recognized that the Sabbath day is an American as 
well as Christian institution. That exception is the 
State of California, and if 1 were a statesman in 
Washington I would move to put her under martial 
Jaw, until she recognized the laws of the Almighty. 
The New England puritans, the Maryland Catholics, 
the Pennsylvanian Quakers and even the New Jer- 
sey Dutch, all regarded the Sabbath of the Lord as 



IN THE SABBATH SPHERE. 



195 



a sacred day, and kept it as such. It was this made 
them powerful in war and successful in peace ; it 
was this formulated the foundation thoughts of our 
immortal Constitution ; it was this worked its 
humane way up and out among the masses, making 
us the man-building nation of the earth. 

And now that all this has been done, shall we 
here in Newark lower the Holy Day into a half 
holiday, or a whole holiday, or a secular day, or a 
toiling day, or a day of dissipation, debauchery and 
death ? By the help of heaven, it shall not be, and 
by the help of the State and municipal laws it must 
not be. [A shower of amens.] 

This brings us to the great present practical 
questions before us : 

(1) Have we city laws that can protect our Sab- 
bath ? 

(2) If so, does wisdom dictate that they should 
be enforced ? 

(3) And if so, who is responsible for their execu- 
tion ? 

First, then, have we city laws that are capable in 
this city of protecting the Sabbath ? The answer 
to this is found in our city ordinance, page 304, and 
following sections: 

''Section 64^. No person or persons shall, on the first day of the 
week, commonly called Sunday, sell, dispose of or deliver for 
money, or any thing of value, or on credit, or shall cause or per- 
mit to be sold or delivered, any spiriti^ous, rnalt, vinous, fer- 



196 



THE SUPREMACY OF LAW 



mented or intoxicating liquors, or any lager beer, or sour wines, 
in any saloon, restaurant, or other place, within the limits of the 
city of Newark. And no person or persons shall, on the first day 
of the week, commonly called Sunday, cause or permit the store, 
shop, saloon, cellar or place of business, or other place-^by him, 
her or them occupied, to be open for the sale of any spirituous, 
malt, vinous, fermented or intoxicating liquors, or any lager beer 
or sour wines. And no person or persons shall, on the first day 
of the week, commonly called Sunday, cause, suffer or permit 
any persons to assemble in his, her or their store, shop, saloon, 
cellar or other place of business, by him, her or them occupied, 
for the purpose of there drinking of any such liquors as afore- 
said. And any person who shall violate any of the provisions of 
this section, shall, for every such offense, forfeit and pay the sum 
of ten dollars, or be imprisoned for the term of four days. 

""Section 648. No persons shall, on the first day of the week, com- 
monly called Sunday, assemble or meet in any street, vacant lot, 
or other place within the city of Newark, for the purpose of there 
engaging in any games, plays, quarrels or disorderly conduct, 
and all persons are hereby prohibited from assembling on the 
said day, in any of the said places, and there engaging in any 
games, plays, quarrels or disorderly conduct; and each and every 
person who shall violate any of the provisions of this section, 
shall, for every such violation, forfeit and pay a sum, not less 
than three dollars, nor more than twenty-five dollars, or be im- 
prisoned for a term not exceeding ten days. 

'''Section 64^. No person or persons shall, on the first day of the 
week, commonly called Sunday, sell, dispose of or offer or ex- 
pose for sale, or cause or permit to be sold, disposed of, or offered 
or exposed for sale, any segars, oysters or confectionery, under 
the penaly of ten dollars for each offense." 

It is evident that here are five distinct depart- 
ments of offense in these three sections against 
which the Sunday law of our city is directly 
aimed : 



m THE SABBATH SPHERE. 



197 



I. — Selling intoxicating drinks on Sunday. 

II. — Open stores and places of business. 

III. — Congregation of people assembled for 
drinking purposes. 

IV. — Games, plays, quarrels and disorderly con- 
duct. 

V. — Sale of cigars, oysters or confectionery. 
These statutes, written and proclaimed by our 

City Fathers, are clear, definite and comprehensive 
enough to insure the protection of the Sabbath. 

That they were on the 5th of July, 1891, all 
flagrantly violated, every citizen knows. That 
they are every Sabbath defied, set at naught, and 
trampled under heedless, desecrating feet, no ob- 
server can deny. The trouble is to get away from 
the sound of their violation. The streets that on 
week days are quiet and uninvaded by the shock- 
ing yells of news hucksters, are on the sacred Sab- 
bath vociferous with the competitive cries of news 
venders. The loud, long-piercing yells about New 
York World, Herald, Sun and Newark Sunday Call, 
invade with distracting vociferations the Sabbath 
morning devotions of an hundred and fifty thou- 
sand professedly Christian people in Newark every 
Holy Day throughout the year. And this in a city 
whose statutes proclaim No person or persons 
shall on Sunday sell, dispose of, or offer for sale " 
so quiet and innocent things as " oysters and con- 
fectionery." The best and most lo3^al citizens are 



198 



THE SUPREMACY OF LAW 



waylaid and distracted on their way to church, 
and even in church are disturbed by this 
outrageous, omnipresent newspaper bellowing. 
The whole city, instead of being a Sabbatic Beulah 
of rest, and Bethesda of blessing, is turned into a 
pandemonium of hell, because these newspaper 
pests want, by loud clamor and crying, to earn a 
few cents, even though it be at the expense of the 
Holy Day of God, and of the spiritual welfare of 
multitudes. This also helps to keep our dissipated 
newspaper Na-bobs in Europe spending in brothels 
the blood-money of souls. Scores of thousands of 
the best citizens feel outraged and indignant, and 
yet this sore evil goes on w^ithout an Aldermanic 
protest, or even a finger lifted by the Mayoralty. 
[Cries of shame.] Fellow citizens of Newark, the 
right of petition " belongs to you, and you should 
roll up such a scroll of petition as would girdle 
this city, and sweep this crjdng Sunda}^ nuisance 
from every block and street. 

And now, as to the places of business that are 
kept open either part of the sacred Sabbath or the 
whole of the Holy Day. " Their name is legion, 
for they are many," To accommodate whom ? Cer- 
tainly not to accommodate the average citizen, 
much less the best citizen. The}^ are open for the 
accommodation of all that godless crew, who drink 
so much on Saturday night, that in their maudlin 
condition they fail to provide for themselves be- 



IN THE SABBATH SPHERE. 



199 



forehand on Sunday. Thus vice, crime, immorality, 
are being- fostered before our very eyes ; the people 
perish, and no man says much, and few do any- 
thing. Oh, for seven years of Mayor Perry, to 
sweep these abominations into the Passaic. 

And as to the saloons, it is a well-known fact that 
there are hundreds of them in this city that make 
thousands of people drunk every Sabbath Day by 
selling, in defiance of the promulgated law, to all 
comers. 

It is no part of the plan of my present discourse 
to set forth the hellish evils of Sunday intoxication. 
It is enough to say here that this great red dragon 
is devouring the vitals of our dissipated felloAV 
citizens every week, and yet no man seems to love 
his fellows enough to raise a cry for their rescue. 
Oh, my God, help us here to create such an inter- 
est in the deliverance of our fallen fellow men, that 
all this city shall be stirred, from the river to the 
hill, and rush to the rescue of the lost. [Amens.] 

And now my next question is, seeing we have 
the laws which are capable of preventing all or 
most of this sin, shame and destruction that are 
going on, accumulatively, on the Day of the Lord, 
in our midst, should these laws be executed ? Or, 
should they lie dormant in the statute book, and 
let the people perish ? You might as reasonably 
ask. Shall the other laws of our ordinance be exe- 
cuted ? Shall the laws concerning streets, sewers, 



200 



THE SUPREMACY OF LAW 



obstructions, encumbrances, markets. Fire Depart- 
ment, Health Department, weights, measures, 
assessments, public grounds and contagious dis- 
eases be executed ? Every citizen of common 
sense says, Certainly ! And, as a rule, these laws 
are executed by the proper executives. Shall the 
laws concerning stealing, arson, burglar3^ assault 
and murder be executed ? You all say, Surel}^ 
otherwise there would be no security for person or 
property. And I rise here in mv place, and pro- 
claim that just as surel}' as the laws touchmg these 
outrages should be executed, so surel}^ should the 
laws against the prostitution of the Sabbath bv the 
open stores, by the side-door saloonists, by the 
avaricious swarms of news venders, and the more 
secret cliques of gamblers, be also executed. [Ap- 
plause, and aniens like a flood.] 

The law of this city gives us a civil Sabbath, and 
I stand here in the name of the welfare of this city 
and demand that it be executed. [Amens.] The 
Sabbath law ought to shine as conspicuousl}' in the 
policeman's togger}' and the detective's badge as 
any other civil law in our code. Then would we 
have a quiet, decent, Divine day. [True.] Then 
would the Sabbath no longer be scouted as a puri- 
tanic and fanatical nuisance ; then would its holy 
hours be no longer employed in dragging our 
people down to deeper disgrace, povert}^ and dis- 
tress, but in educating, refining, elevating and evan- 
gelizing them. [Many voices, That's so."] 



IN THE SABBATH SPHERE. 



20I 



In the next place, it is proper here to inquire 
who is responsible for the execution of these Sab- 
batic laws which I find in our city ordinances ? On 
whom does the weight of responsibility rest ? Who 
holds the secret spring of execution? You may say 
the Common Council. Not exactly, for that is more 
of a legislative body than executive ; still, they 
have certain responsibilities. You may say the 
police. True, the police are an executive body ; 
but the city ordinance places a man of vast responsi- 
bility and power between the legislative Council on 
the one hand and the executive police force on the 
other, and this man is the Mayor. 

Page 14, section 16, of our City Ordinances, dis- 
tinctly legislates : The Mayor shall supervise, the 
conduct and the acts of all city officers^ and in case of 
violation or neglect of duty, or other misconduct of 
any officer he shall transmit information thereof to 
the Common Council, with such facts and particu- 
lars as he may deem it important to communicate, 
and for the performance of his duty in this respect 
and otherwise he shall at all times have full power 
to examine all books and papers in possession of 
such officers, and to examine any deputy clerk or 
other subordinate." 

Page 178, and section 399, are still more emphatic 
in placing the weight of the proper execution of 
the city ordinances by the police on the Mayor. 
They emphatically state that he shall see that the 



202 



THE SUPREMACY OF LAW 



several officers enforce the laws and ordinances of 
the city : 

^'Section jgg. The Mayor shall be the head of the police depart- 
ment, and shall superintend and direct the police generally; he 
shall see that the several officers and members of the department are 
prompt and faithful in the discharge of their duties, and from time 
to titne take such measures as he may dee?n necessary for the preserva- 
tion of the peace and good 07'der^ and the enforcement of the la^vs and 
ordinances of the city.'' 

By page 184 we learn: 

Section 410. The Mayor and the Committee on Police are 
hereby authorized and required, from time to time, to make and 
establish such rules and regulations not inconsistent with the laws 
of this State, or the ordinances of the city, for the government 
and control of the members of the police department as may be 
deemed expedient and proper to carry out the objects of this 
ordinance, and with a view to making the police department and 
all the officers and agents appointed under it, efficient, vigilant^ 
prompt, and useful to the city. Such rules and regulations shall 
be duly reported to the Common Council, and when concurred in 
by them, shall be in full force, and shall be styled ' The Police 
Rules of the Police Department.' 

Thus it is evident that the city ordinance places 
the Mayor at the head of the executive department 
and even authorizes him, with concurrence of the 
Police Committee, to make regulations, if the old 
are insufihcient for the proper government of the 
city. The main wheel is the Mayor, the next the 
Police Committee, the next the Common Council, 
and these being inter-active, convey their com^ 
mands to the police for execution, 



IN- THk SABBATlt SPHER&. ^63 

It is plain now where the responsibility for the 
violation lies. It lies namely on the Mayor ; nor 
can that undemocratic and iniquitous measure, re- 
cently passed by our State Legislature, which 
wrests the civic power from you, the people, and 
places it in the hands of an autocratic oligarchy, 
exculpate the Mayor from discharging his pre- 
scribed duties. It lies partly on the Police Com- 
mittee ; it lies partially on the Common Council 
and police. But the Mayor is the mainspring. 
The subordinates will not likely act where they 
have a feeling that he and the Common Council 
do not wish them to act. There is such a thing 
as being too active as an officer — policy comes 
in here. The tip of political strategy is easily 
given and received. The unwritten law and cau- 
tion and prudence for our own sake comes into 
play, and the Sabbath is allowed to be looted and 
polluted because certain cautious, knowing ones 
want to stay in office. [That's it.] 

Mayor Haynes is a paternal old gentleman with 
a certain shew interblending of the pedagogue and 
demagogue that is not altogether despicable. He 
also, I believe, in monetary matters, is honest, and 
in application to business, industrious and patient. 

These are good qualities for any Mayor, but he 
needs holy electricity in his backbone, and if he 
will now walk up and give us a civil Sabbath, ac- 
cording to the demands of the city ordinance which, 



204 



THE SUPREMACY OF LAW 



according to his oath of office he is bound to do, 
we will thank him very much, and we will do more, 
something which he very much appreciates, we 
will consider his re-election to office. But if he 
will not wake up and protect our Sabbath accord- 
ing to the laws laid down for him in the statute 
books, then I call upon every Christian voter, be he 
Democrat or Republican, to come forward and 
elect a man who will execute the laws he is sworn 
to execute, according to the demands of the book 
which has been accepted by the people as their 
municipal guide, and not according to prudent and 
private whims of his own, salted down with a strong 
layer of political craft and selfishness. Wake up 
the Mayor to his duty, or give us a man that will 
make duty his watchword ; duty and not ffiiesse, 
duty and not duplicity. [Showers of Amens.] 

Then w^e shall have a Sabbath which shall by its 
ministries bless the whole people ; then w^e shall 
have a Sabbath expurgated from open stores and 
back door saloons, drinking carousals and the pest- 
iferous, ubiquitous army of newspaper criers. We 
shall, indeed, have a day of devotion, of religious 
recuperation and rapture; a day which puts its 
precious hours with its priceless teaching and in- 
spirations around the wearied bodies, tired minds 
and wounded hearts of the thousands upon thou- 
sands of our factory workers and shop-keepers and 
poorly paid clerks, and lifts them up to greet the 



IN THE SABBATH SPHERE. 



205 



Sabbath as the day of their delight. Then will we 
all with the eloquent Morley Punshon sing : 

" Sweet is the sunlight after rain, 

And sweet the sleep which follows pain, 
And sweetly steals the Sabbath rest 
Upon the world's work-wearied breast. 



" Of heaven the sign — of earth the calm ! 
The poor man's birthright and his balm ! 
God's witness of celestial things ! 
A sun 'with healing in its wings.' 

" New rising in this Gospel time, 
And in its sevenfold light sublime; 
Blest day of God ! we hail the dawn, 
To gratitude and worship drawn. 

" Through the hot world from week to week, 
'Twere vain the soul's repose to seek; 
But on the Sabbath restful air 
Is nature's voiceless call to prayer." 



" O ! naught of gloom and naught of pride, 
Should with the sacred hours abide; 
At work for God in loved employ, 
We lose the duty in the joy." 

Wherefore " Observe to do all the words of this 
law. For it is not a vain thing for you, because it 
is your life." [Amens.] 



10 



The Tides of Music's Sabbath Sea. 



Sunday Morning^ August i6j 1891. 

Eph. V, 19* — " Speaking to yourselves (one to another), in psalms 
and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody 
in your heart to the Lord." 

Rev. V, 9, 10. — "And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art 
worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof ; for 
thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood 
out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation ; 
and hast made us unto our God kings and priests ; and we 
shall reign on the earth." 

^ I ''HIS earth is more than a splendid sepulchre 
roiling round the sun. Harmonic Life may 
hide herself, but she can be caught. She shall be 
caught when we learn how to sing the bridal of the 
earth and sky ; when we become suit used with the 
light of that morn that cannot sleep and never dies. 
The bards of brightest minstrelsy have shown us 
the receding skirts of this coj^est queen. While 
in pursuit of her, each wrinkle in our forehead be- 
comes the furrow of a star. Let us, therefore, take 
a Sabbath morning walk among the hills of God, 



ThE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA, 207 



and see if we cannot descry a life that will lift us 
into song, and a song that will lift us into love. 

The soul of man is the fountain of emotion, but 
objective beings or things only can rouse this emo- 
tion to its highest grandeur, or depress it to its 
deepest degradation, or swell it to its widest range ; 
and, that man's soul may sink, soar and fly, nature 
is full, not only of depth, height and expanse, but 
filled with many-phased and multiform forces, 
that keep beating in upon the senses and rousing 
the soul. 

(i) There is form, for instance, which assumes all 
sorts of shapes and positions — round, square, rough, 
smooth, small, great, symmetric, irregular, low and 
lofty. The sculptor tries to imitate these varied 
forms, which so entertain the eye, and delight the 
mind, and relieve the dull monotony, by vivacious 
variety. You may pass through any part of earth 
you please, you may go on any tour through 
nature you wish, and you will find nothing exactly 
alike in all respects. Even the little things -the 
tiny insects, the useless reptiles, the fish of the lake- 
let, the beasts of the jungle, the fowls of the air- 
are all various. This vast variety carries itself up 
into all ranges of life — into the stately horse, the 
patient ox, the form and features of the man. And 
when you trace the lakes, rivers, seas, valleys, 
mountains of the world ; when you trace the im- 
mens3 oceans and mighty continents, you find in 



2o8 THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBA TH SEA. 



all a brotherhood, a similarity, but also a difference 
in aspect and in form. And when we leave the 
terrestrial, and soar up through the spaces of the 
sky, with star-revealing eye, the layers of air, fres- 
coes of cloud, rain of stars in their immeasurable 
deeps, are all various. And this vast variety of all 
things, from the smallest animalculae to the mighti- 
est orbs, keeps offering to the mind of man fresh 
phases of being, which stir his emotions with some- 
thing new and strange. Surely in love and wis- 
dom thus hath God wrought." 

(2) But again, there exist on the surface of nature 
not only these vast varieties in form, but also great 
variety in color. All the colors of the prism are 
used, to lend an ever varying expression to grass, 
herb, flower, fruit, bird, fish, beast and man. This 
variegation of color is represented by the painter 
rather than the sculptor. But what a poor effort 
is the greatest ever flung on canvas, by the most 
cunning hand of deftest delineator, compared with 
the wealth of shade and color in the magnifi- 
cence of nature herself. And these colors, whether 
sober gray, or living green, or imperial purple, or 
ensanguined scarlet, or chaste violet, or the skillful 
interblending of each and ail in the billowy arches of 
nature ; all are full of forces, which, often uncon^ 
sciously to ourselves, soften and sweeten our emo- 
tions and gratify our love of change. But these 
forms and colors, in all their variations, appeal to 
the eye. 



THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 



209 



(3) This brings us to another class of variations 
which appeal, not to the eye at all, but to the ear. 
These ear variations are not visible ; they are not 
made for us ; they are not on the surface of nature ; 
they do not grow in the valley ; they do not spring 
up spontaneously in the forest, nor appear any- 
where on the surface of nature. They are hidden 
in nature's breast ; they dwell in the recessional of 
man's own soul ; they love the inner chambers of 
nature's palace. And it is when man opens with 
the golden key of melody, these hidden forces of 
harmonic sounds, that we have the highest style of 
emotion. We have in nature many things which 
have been called song that have not been evoked 
by man. These are but mere tokens of what can 
be done by nature's Master and by nature's King. 
We hear of the lovely song of the lark, of the 
dulcet warblings of the nightingale, and of the 
delightsome music of the thrush ; but if any human 
debutant were to appear in opera, yielding such 
sounds, he would be hissed from the footlights : if 
in church, he would be invited from the choir gal- 
lery. We hear of the melodic song of the waves, 
and the soughing rhythm of the winds, and the dig- 
nified music of the storm ; but any human melodist 
appearing before men and producing such sounds, 
in such monotonous measures, would be deemed 
unfitted for any choral society. 

No, the harmonics of nature are only metaphors 



2 lO 



THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 



of what can be done ; only prophetic notes of that 
mighty musical pageantr}/, coming steadily upon 
human time, through human depths, from Divine 
deeps. The prophetess of song has long been in 
the world. She has piped through the throat of 
the bird ; she has crooned and strummed through 
the voices of the wind ; she has screamed through 
the yells of the savage ; but she has been but a 
prophetess still. There could be nothing but 
scrunching and scranching sounds, till the great 
Harmonist of human hearts appeai-ed, reconciling 
the faculties of men, and setting them to the 
symphonies of heaven, by opening the mystic vol- 
ume of eternity. 

There were some efforts at song among the 
heathen of the olden time. The Egyptians, the 
Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the barbar'c 
hordes of the far Orient, tried to sing, but all 
lamentably failed. They could not rise higher 
than the minor key ; they never felt the conquer- 
ing swell of the sealed Book opened by the slain 
Lamb, because they themselves were filled with a 
barbarous dissonance which would not let them 
truly see, and therefore, they could not sweetly 
sing. Even David himself, the poet prince, and 
the minstrels of the prophetic schools, and of the 
holy temple, could not reach the highest notes nor 
sublimcst strains of human melody. And it was 
only when that mighty Harmonist of the human 



THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 211 



heart appeared amid Judean hills, in peasant garb 
and godlike grandeur, bringing life and immortality 
to light by the Gospel, that men began to "sing 
with the spirit and the understanding also." And 
even then, amid the general clash of Christian 
creeds with pagan systems, the real goddess of 
song only occasionally appeared ; and although 
epistles, and gospels, and sermons, and speeches, 
were recorded and handed down through the 
ages, yet, singular to say, except the Magnificat, 
there is not a single original stanza of song in all 
the New Testament, and few hymns in all the vol- 
uminous writings of the Church Fathers. 

Those were times when men and women had 
more cause to contend than sing. Those were days 
when men and women had to encounter in hand-to- 
hand fight the assailing enemies of the truth, and 
so, whilst snatches here and there of sacred sym- 
phony appear in early ages and medieval times, 
there was but little of the real spirit and expres- 
sion of triumphant song. 

But when at length the most violent and bloody 
battles had been fought ; when at length four hun- 
dred years ago the placid light of redeeming truth 
touched Bohemian hills and commenced to sweep 
through the forests of Germany, then the goddess 
of an exalted symphony began to touch with 
heavenly fingers the happy human heart — the real 
harp of song. 



212 THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 



From the days of Hiiss, Luther, Calvin and 
Knox, the spirit and power of music has assumed a 
real importance among the children of men. From, 
then till now it has kept growing- and gaining 
steadil}' an exalted sway. It bids fair to become 
the greatest art known to the human race. Raphael, 
Phidias and Michael Angelo, the mighty masters 
of sculpture and painting, vrane before the incom- 
ing presence of Beethoven, Haydn and Mendels- 
sohn, the human seraphs that swam in the skies 
of symphonic thought beneath the wand of sacred 
melody. " Then the waves of music's purest sea 
began to flow for the good to be." And now let 
us see a little farther into the philosoph}* of this. 

(i) Music is the language of the felicitous emo- 
tions. Discord and dumbness form the language of 
the conflicting emotions. Examine yourselves and 
you find this illustrated abundantl3^ Diagnose 3^our- 
selves and 3'ou Avill discover you are structures of 
sensitiveness, on w^hich sounds make much impres- 
sion. A foe speaks harshly to you and some of 
you fly into a towering passion ; a friend speaks 
soothingly to you, or a foe seeks, b3'due reparation, 
reconciliation, and 3^ou 113^ into a state of composure 
and calm. A horrible set of savage yells and 
scranching sounds breaks suddenl3- upon 3^ou, and 
you spring up disconcerted as though 3^ou had sud- 
denl3' been stabbed. But a most melodious voice 
projects soft, mellifluous sounds gentl3^ over you 



THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA, 213 



and you are the willing captive of a soothing charm. 

When you are harassed by harshness, your emo- 
tions sink ; when you are sweetened by harmony, 
your emotions rise, and the more complete the 
velocity, intensity, variety and form of these har 
monies, if adapted to your condition, the more com- 
plete will be your sense of exalted feeling. Human 
nature itself is the ground form of music. Therefore 
another quality must be taken into this delineation, 
and that is what I have already hinted at, namely, 
the harmony of human nature. If in your body, 
the brain and nerves and thews and muscles and 
arteries are all out of order, there is no use of you 
trying to be musical ; there is no use of anybody 
trying to make you so. But if your whole being is 
in perfect pose, symmetrically strung, so that all 
factors accord, you rush out into the morning air 
like a lamb into a grassy pasture on a June morn- 
ing and you can scarcely keep from singing. 

If in your family there are savage discords and 
barbarous dissonances, caused by clashing interests 
and cruel naggings, you are disturbed almost as 
much as you would be by physical ailment, and 
even the skillful harp of David does not drive away 
your soul-like sorrow. If in your business the lead- 
ing lines are at variance and your leading interests 
collide and destroy each other, and your accounts 
are in an inextricable tangle, unless you are ex- 
ceedingly dishonest and careless and phlegmatic, no 



2 14 TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA, 



minstrel can make you feel, for any length of time, 
musical. But if there be perfect health in your 
mind, in your soul, in your body, perfect felicity in 
your home, and a fair share of prosperity in your 
business ; if the past of your life to 5^ou is satis- 
factory and the future is blossoming with hope, 
almost any melodist can make you merry. But 
then this merriment may be but for a time. There 
is something more which we must take in before 
we can be perfectly melodious all round the circle 
of every possibility and probability. When you add 
to this physical and family and business happi- 
ness, another and a still more important happiness ; 
Avhen you add to security for this world security 
also for the world to come ; when you add to it the 
prospect of a happ)^ death, the glory of a harmless 
judgment, the lustre of a heavenly home, the grand- 
eur of the best society, the best place, the best 
Father and the best of all things under His benignant 
smile ; when, I say, you add these high spiritual 
states of heart melody to all the forces of natural 
harmony, with all the powers of governmental 
goodness, then you are in a truly melodic state, as 
well as condition and are prepared if God has given 
you a voice, to rise to the highest emotions and 
moods of the very sublimest song. 

But you must not here misunderstand my mean- 
ing. I do not mean to say that experiences of 
trouble and winnowing tribulation, prevent the 



THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 215 

purest musical moods and highest musical ecstasies. 
Indeed, the contrary of this is true. It is the soul 
that has passed through the most fiery afflictions, 
that has meekly endured the deepest ploughshare 
of sorrow, that comes forth with the most sensitive 
chords all tensely strung to some sweet soothing 
strain. It is such a soul that can enter into real 
sympathy with human anguish, and if possessed of 
a voice can project all that magnetic tenderness 
that soothes, and softens the listeners, through a 
voice that comes from a soul which has suffered 
sorest sorrows. 

It was for this reason that a great teacher was 
accustomed to ask his intending pupils whether 
they had seen sorrow, and if not, rejected them as 
unable to rise to the finest strains of sympathy in 
song ; it was this that gave such touching grandeur 
to the Apocalyptic Song — those who sang it had 
come up, through great tribulation ; " and He, 
through whom they came, had seen m^ore sorrow 
than any of the sons of men, and had been more 
marred than any man." 

No ! sorrow makes song all the sweeter if it be 
sorrow which has swept us up out of grossness and 
sin into faith and refinement before God. Where- 
fore, ye suffering ones before me to-day, do not 
despair. Every affliction nobly borne, every trial 
prayerfully endured, every heart spasm and recoil 
that comes to you through dire adversity, if they 



2l6 



THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 



but draw or drive you nearer to your God, will 
give a fresh richness to your soul, and new tone to 
your heart, another flood of feeling to your spirit, 
by which you shall sympathetically sing out your 
victories to others in such sonnets as 



" In the midst of affliction my table is spread 

With blessings unnumbered my cup runneth o'er; 
With perfume and oil thou anointest my head, 
O what shall I ask of thy providence more." 

It is harmony with God under all circumstances 
for which I plead, and when this is realized, even 
straits, difficulties, embarrassments, toils, poverty 
and distresses, become mellow and mighty to urge 
us with more rapid feet up that rugged, narrow 
path to purest harmonies. [Amens.] 

But there is another important point which I 
wish to impress on you. Music is so versatile, so 
accommodating, that she casts a glamour over all 
things worthy or unworthy which she sings. In 
this respect, like all art, she is not at all fastidious. 
I have heard her chant with delight " Bren- 
nen on the Moor" and '^Bonnie Annie Laurie," 
and ''The Lone Barren Isle " and "Lord Ulin's 
Daughter." Brennen was a savage outlaw and 
'' Bonnie Annie " was not so delightsome as many 
I see before me, and "The Lone Barren Isle " was 
certainly weird and desolate, and " Lord Ulin's 
Daughter " was a disobedient girl who ran off with 



THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 217 

the Duke of Ulva, broke her father's heart and lost 
her life by it. But yet, when these worthless 
themes are set to lovely music and sung by a sweet 
sympathetic voice, they will start tears of emotion 
to our eyes. But the power is not in these subjects 
of the songs but in the music which celebrates 
them. The Last Rose of Summer " is but a 
worthless thing, but sung by some persons it will 
make your heart melt, sentimentalize and weep. 
Music can take the rustic minstrel boy " and make 
a conquering hero of him. It can take such a rude, 
rustic combatant as Brien Boru and make him ap- 
pear as the heart and soul of honor ; it can take 
the " Banks of Doon " and make them shimmer like 
the banks of the River of Eden ; it can take the 
homely Scotch face of " Peggy," by Burns, and 
make it shine in a soft sweetness which would be 
sufficient to charm a king. Music can take even 
corrupt, ignoble and cruel persons and practices 
and make them appear in all the resplendence of 
noble and exalted character. 

And this is why music is at once delightful and 
dangerous. Delightful, if it sing a worthy and 
ennobling theme ; dangerous, if it polishes pollution 
or attracts by its melodious sounds, unwary youth 
from the ways of virtue and religion to the 
ways of vice and vagrancy. This powder of music 
is why she is used in all the haunts of evil. The 
lowest resorts of shameless vice and buffoonery 



2 1 8 - THE TID ES OF M USIC S SA BE A TH SEA . 

must have their orchestra. Sometimes, even in our 
own city, they are so bold as to place them in the 
casino and saloon to attract the innocents and draw 
the unwary. The great dramatists, tragedians and 
stage managers all appreciate and use music as a 
part of their attractions, and indeed, sometimes, she 
is the queen of the whole entertainment, as in the 
high opera. These facts simply prove her power, 
and although she is the daughter of heaven, yet she 
is by the inventive genius of men used, alas ! too 
often, to lead the way to and through the gates of 
hell. 

I w^ll pass by the milkmaid as she sings on her 
homeward way with the milk-pail on her head ; 
I will pass by the swain who drives away his 
disappointment by the strains of the violin of 
Stradivarius ; I will pass the civic virgin who 
soothes her sorrows and banishes her blues by the 
deftly fingered melodies upon the piano-forte of 
Christofali ; I will pass by the Carilons psean-pipes, 
organs, harps, clarions, clarionets, flutes, etc., of the 
orchestras of the world. They are all trying to get 
happy or to make others happy, or to make money 
by making melody ; but the truth remains that they 
are all preparing the thought and feeling of the 
world for better things ; although we do not see it 
they are all preparing the world for that better 
melody which is as high above all mere earthly 
music as the sky is above the earth, and that is the 



THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 219 



music which comes from a heart which has come 
into harmony with itself, with nature and with God, 
through Jesus Christ, the only Heart Harmonist, so 
that all circumstances are but the hands that strike 
the well-strung lyre, and make it give forth a 
melody which is preparing for that great song 
the redeemed sing in endless rapture around the 
throne of God in glory. 

The music of Italy shall lose its voluptuous lan- 
guor ; the music of France its gay frivolity ; the 
music of Germany its intense realism ; the 
screeching of the savage coming forth from 
discordant hearts shall lose its harshness ; the de- 
grading music of the ballet, and of the worthless 
and of the vile, shall all lose their defiling in- 
nuendoes, and men everywhere shall feel the thrill 
of that new song which will be forever young. 

Hence it is that the years as they pass pour out 
their pearls of hymns from a host of hymnists, 
and hence it is that never since the world began 
were there so many musicians who sing of Jesus and 
His love. And as the heart of the Italian dilates 
and loses its stageyness when Garibaldi's hymn is 
sung ; and the soul of Frenchmen becomes serene 
and pathetic when the Marsellaise is played ; and 
the German turns from his beer and stupor when 

Die Wacht am Rhein " is chanted ; and the Eng- 
lish, Russians and Americans are alert and dignified 
when their national anthems arc encored, so the 



220 THE TIDES OF iMUSlCS SABBATH SEA. 



time is coming when the vast masses of humanity 
will sway with delight and sing with an imperial 
joy, when the songs of God the Father, and of God 
the Son, and of God the Holy Ghost, and of truth, 
and of holiness and victory, and home are sung 
by the multiplying pilgrims of the cross. 

That time will come just as soon as men and 
women learn how good, and near, and great, and 
lovable, God Almighty is ; that time will come just 
as soon as men will learn how weak and worthless 
comparatively are the things of this present life ; 
that time will come just as soon as men know how 
attractive is duty, and how delightful is religion, 
and how important is salvation, through our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. [Aniens.] 

Therefore, what is the business of the hour for 
every Christian ? — I had almost said honest Chris- 
tian, but you cannot be a Christian without being 
honest ; I had almost said true Christian, but you 
cannot be a Christian without being true. As an 
artist;? follows art, so a Christi^?;^^ follows Christ, 
and He is the life and soul of honesty and truth. 
Hence, I will only ask, What is the business of 
every Christian in regard to music? The text 
yields the answer : " Speaking to yourselves (one 
to another) in psalms and hymns and spiritual 
songs, singing and making melody in your heart to 
the Lord." This is the delightful method you have 
of enjoying yourselves. I know one man in this 



THE TIDES OE MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 221 



church who has fifteen different hymn books in his 
house ; I know that no good hymn by any Ameri- 
can pubhsher escapes his eye ; he cuts it out and 
pastes it in a book of his own, and when the time 
comes he has his musical supplies ready, and you 
all know how useful that man is in this city and 
church. Nor is he alone. There are others of you, 
who, perhaps, in a less extensive way, practice the 
same method. I am happy to notice this is not 
confined to the class-leaders and the men, but that 
very many of you Christian women delight your- 
selves, your families, your friends and your church 
in the same way. We have a heaven here in Frank- 
lin street every time we have a meeting, and it is 
in no small measure due to the fact that you are 
now^ cultivating the grand old Apostolic and Meth- 
odistic custom of speaking to one another in 
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and 
making melody in your hearts to the Lord." I 
I want to encourage this ; I want your singing to 
become so powerful and persuasive that it will lay 
hold of the ear of this city, with still greater 
strength, and woo and win many a wanderer from 
scenes of profanity and death. [Amens.] We 
have a thousand song cards printed, and we want 
a thousand singers, that will sing more powerfully 
and sweetly at the shrine of God, than did the 
Ssengerfestites lately at the shrine of art. Observe 
I do not despise art. 



2 22 THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBA TH SEA. 

The science of music is important. Indeed, you 
cannot have good time and true symphony without 
it, and therefore I encourage those of you who can 
use notes to use them, and those of you who can- 
not, to be led by the leaders who know the notes, 
and not by quavers and semi-quavers of your own. 
Moreover, we do not want any such ridiculous 
repetitions as a choir once exemplified, which 
undertook to sing — 

" I love to steal awhile away 
From every cumbering care," 

Commenced and continued with — 

" I love to steal — 
I love to steal — 
I love to steal." 

A stranger who was in the audience, rose up and 
announced : " If you love to steal so much as that, 
this is no place for me." We want no such vain 
repetitions in our singing. We want the best 
hymns in the world, set to the best music, and we 
believe we have them. And now it remains for us 
all to set out with two things in our minds : 

First, That music is fast becoming the great 
melodious tide that is going to carry this world 
forward on its way to God ; that although it began 
with the sharp, shrill notes of the savage, it, 
through the modulating feelings and tones of the 



THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 22% 



church, has become so deep, rich and strong, that 
it lilts and soothes the souls of men as it never 
did before. That all ihese advances in the science 
of music by great composers are to be brought ni 
and used by the church ; that art, science and 
Satan must not be permitted to use all the ga}^ 
glorious and stirring tunes ; that whenever and 
wherever we find a lofty and beautiful melody, no 
matter what it is attached to, it is a child of the 
Church, for had it not been for the Church it never 
would have been born, and that it must be lifted up 
and brought out of its secular and salacious setting 
and made a conveyancer of heavenly love and 
calm to the aching hearts of the multitudes. I 
regret exceedingly the stupidity with which our 
hymnists and musical publishers suppress in this 
matter. There are scores of the most delightful 
melodies, that have been allowed to float, like 
orphans, through the air, and flow only from the 
lips of profanity, which, if caught and set to some 
sacred sonnets, would swell millions of souls with 
joy. [Amens.] But the Church is moving, and it 
is moving in this direction. 

The other fact that I mention for your encour- 
agement is that no instrument, however much is 
paid for it, however deft the operator, however 
grand the thunder tubes, and soft and sweet the 
minor strains ; no instrument can ever equal the 
human voice that flows forth from a Divine and 



2 24 TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 



redeemed soul. [Hallelujahs.] An instrument, 
however grand, is but a wind machine ; that's all. 
It has no feeling ; it has no thought ; it has no soul, 
but that which flows through the fingers of the 
operators, and that, 1 fear, in many cases, in these 
times, does not amount to much. But the human 
voice has thought, and sentiment, and feeling, and 
sympathy, and hate, and love, and joy, and sorrow, 
and glory, and God, all in it, and hence it is that 
your singing lifts me up ; hence it is that I feel hke 
a man floating in glory, swimming in bliss, when 
you sing well ; hence it is that I feel so free in 
speaking, because your very songs move me with 
the Holy Ghost. I would rather have those Chris- 
tian people up there in that choir, Avho pay such 
regard to God's Word and Day, who come down 
here to the Lord's table with us on Sunday, who 
sing not so much for pay or position, but because 
they love to sing out the holy joy of their happy 
hearts ; I announce to you that I would infinitely 
rather have them than all the artistic, godless, 
irreverent, giggling choirs that ecclesiastical cater- 
ers are able to pay for. [Am ens.] 

Now mark, I am not despising the art, it is the 
godlessness of the art. Sanctify Art, and she 
is Divine ; desecrate her, and she is all the more 
devilish because so artistic. Let us have artistic 
singers, let us have scientific voices, let us have 
highest types of intelligence and refinement in 



THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 225 



music, but before they can pass the threshold of 
my judgment into my church and choir, I want to 
know whether they have been sent by God or the 
devil. If by the latter, then I say. Go away, and 
sing his songs, and don't come in here to pretend 
to sing God's songs, when you are living a sinful 
life. [Amens.] My friends, I find I ^ have enough 
to do to keep the devil out of the church, without 
inviting him in to receive pay, for doing the prais- 
ing that the people ought to do for themselves. 

No ! Out upon this villainous custom all over 
the land, and let the Church be vital enough to 
raise up a race of holy men singers and women 
singers, who will be as scrupulous in their lives, 
because they occupy so responsible positions as 
that of leaders of sacred praise, as the minister in 
the pulpit is required to be, who is the leader of 
the people's prayers, and thoughts, and emotions. 
Then we will have spiritual services, then we will 
have full churches, then will we have many con- 
versions, then will we advance upon the world, 
instead of the world advancing upon us, then will 
God be glorified and sinners saved on every hand, 
and the kingdoms of this world will became the 
kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ." 

There is the old creation, that is the material ; 
there is the new creation, that is the spiritual; 
there are the old songs, they are the secular ; there 
is the new song," that is, " Thou art worthy to 



226 THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 



take the book and to open the seals thereof/' Seal 
after seal of mysteries flies open as the Son of God 
becomes immanent ; problem after problem of lite's 
dark enigma is solved with satisfactory solution by 
the approach of the Mediator between God and man. 
" For thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God 
by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, 
and people, and nation, and hast made us unto our 
God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the 
earth." This is the keynote of that new song ; the 
note all men need to hear and heed ; the note that 
lifts the heart, the mind, the life, the famil3% the 
State, the Church, the world, up into that harmonic 
realm where they cannot keep from singing." 
Thousands of hymns and tunes flow from this 
heavenly, this prolific note, all over this emerging 
world, and as more and more benighted and be- 
lated men and women, are made to hear these 
hallowed strains, the farther will this earth, with all 
its nations, emerge from intellectual, moral and 
spiritual gloom, until, rising up, all shall see the 
strange consistency of the death of Death by 
the death of The Deathless; the slaughter of sin 
by the Sinless ; the dissipation of suffering by 
the suffering of The Sufferer; the destruction 
of discord by The Harmonist, who hath been 
slain that every tangled chord in human nature 
should be renewed, reset, retuned, and that every 
perturbation of law in all man's moral universe 



THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBATH SEA. 227 



should be stilled and made harmonic with human 
welfare forever. [Hallelujahs.] 

Meantime, let us keep on singing ; singing in the 
sunshine ; singing mid the shadows, for the sake of 
the hearts that are dying in decay ; singing in your 
heart ; singing in your home, singing by the death- 
bed of the sick and the poor ; singing in your 
school ; singing in your meetings ; singing in your 
shops, streets and stores ; singing with the sinners ; 
singing with the saints ; singing for souls that are 
sick, sore and sad. And in the great congregation, 
when the masses meet to hear God's holy word, 
then, and I say it strongly, let every soul break out 
in hallowed song ; song so rich, so deep, so sweet ; 
song so melodious and mighty in its meaning and 
its swell; song so tender, touching and triumph- 
ant ; song so full of faith, love, hope and joy ; song 
so full of rapture and the sympathy of tears, that 
the poor wanderers afar from our Father's Word, 
Day and Love, shall catch the strain and feel the 
power, and falling in with its mighty tide, be swept 
in penitence to their knees and then on promises to 
their God. [Amens.] Oh, comrades, sing on, till 
your own hearts glow and luke-warm ones grow 
warm, and back-sliders be healed, and the whole 
army of the Church launch out upon the tides of 
Music's Gospel Sea, bearing all nearer to that 
great melodic throng who are singing still that 
new song to Him who is worthy because He was 



2 28 THE TIDES OF MUSICS SABBA TH SEA. 



slain. Sing on, then, ye pilgrims of Franklin street, 
with Flora Best, such strains as — 

" There are songs of joy, that I lov'd to sing, 
When my heart was as blythe as a bird in Spring; 
But the song I have learned is so full of cheer 
That the dawn shines out in the darkness drear. 

[Chorus.] 

" O, the new, new song; O, the new, new song; 
I can sing it now with the ransom'd throng: 
Power and dominion to Him that shall reign. 
Glory and praise to the Lamb that was slain. 

" There are strains of home, that are dear as life, 
And I list to them oft' mid the din of strife; 
But I know of a home that is wondrous fair. 
And I sing the psalm they are singing there. 

" Can my lips be mute, or my heart be sad, 
When my gracious Master hath made me glad? 
When He points where the many mansions be, 
And sweetly says there is one for thee. 

" I shall catch the gleam of its jasper wall 
When I come to the gloom of the Even -fall, 
For I know that the shadows dreary and dim. 
Have a path of Light that will lead to Him." 

I look forward to the time when every church 
choir shall be an orchestra of heaven ; when every 
old twanging bell shall be taken from every steeple 
and replaced with melodic chimes; when all the 
best voices, trained in highest art, shall feel hon- 



THE TIDES OF MUSIC'S SABBATH SEA. 229 

ored in singing our Saviour's praise ; when floating 
out in broad, deep volume from the universal 
human soul, shall flow such a tide of song as shall 
set and keep going heavenward, the vast mul- 
titudes who, inspired by this new song," speak 
to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual 
songs, singing and making melody in their hearts 
to the Lord." [Amens.] 



11 



This Sabbath Land and Its Mission 



to the Nations. 

Sunday Evening, August 16^ 1891. 

isaiah Ixii, 4.-^" Thou shalt be called Hephzibah atid thy land 
Beulah." 

Mai. iii, 12.—" And all nations shall call you blessed, for ye shall 
be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts." 

QCIENCE shows us all beings are evolved through 
^ the instrumentality of internal and external 
factors. Man himself is no exception. Inward forces 
originally given operated on by outward powers 
conditionally conferred, produce all the physical, 
intellectual, social and spiritual phenomena known 
to us in the history of man. The present stage 
we have reached implies a vast number of pro- 
gressions by successive metamorphoses, every one 
of which is evidently intended to take us farther 
on in the great evolutive march toward that destiny 
mapped out for us in this and other worlds. Such 
progressions imply an organic system, a distribu- 



THIS SABBATH LAND, ETC. 



231 



ting, a regulating and a sustaining system. These 
systems have been in operation in nature, in man's 
body, mind and soul, and naturally give rise to 
certain social, intellectual and spiritual types in 
man's sociological sphere. 

Nature is not a mere husk of the spiritual ; it is a 
material pattern of the spiritual. The natural 
realm is pervaded by the spiritual presence ; the 
spiritual presence is environed with the natural 
realm ; the continuity and supremacy of law, in both 
spheres are the agencies with which the Supreme 
Being works, and while it may be that natural law 
overlaps and to some extent pervades the spiritual 
sphere, yet it never can monopolize nor dethrone 
it. These laws are not necessarily heterogeneous. 
Indeed, the frequency with which our Saviour il- 
lustrated spiritual truths by natural phenomena, 
indicates they are homogeneous ; so homogeneous 
that the natural laws are but differentiations of the 
spiritual. The spiritual, therefore, is Supreme ; 
the natural, subservient. This was demonstrated 
in the career of the Christ; it is demonstrated in 
the evolutions of the Christians. The spiritual 
being naturally Supreme, has its purpose and its plan. 
That plan and purpose, when we think back, lead 
us to a person. That person points us to His laws, 
by which we rise till the mind touches His intelli- 
gence and the heart — His love. Then we involun- 
tary exclaim: Tliis is He; He must control all 



232 



THIS SABBATH LAND AND ITS 



natural essences and moral systems. That He has 
planned beings to evolve under his own supervision 
and according- to His own model, there is every 
reason to believe. The story of human life proves 
an intelligent progression. Progression, from the 
unit to the family, from the family to the clan, 
from the clan to the tribe, from the tribe to the 
nation, and from, the nation to the race. 

Herbert Spencer's main postulate in his develop- 
ment of sociology is that everything advances from 
homogeneity to heterogeneity. This he demon- 
strates by so many examples that no fair mind, 
after thorough examination, is disposed to doubt 
the truth of this part of his theory. 

In a preceding discourse, not of this series, how- 
ever, I have demonstrated that the Spencerian 
theory of evolution serves a high and important 
function to advanced thinkers and readers, and 
will continue to do so to all men in the proxi- 
mate future, who make the domain of truth and 
love among men the main objects of research. 
On that occasion, you will remember, I presented 
four leading parallelisms between Mr. Spencer's 
sociology and the doctrines revealed by the 
Bible. These parallelisms do not appear at first 
reading, but only begin to body themselves forth 
after his books, have been beaten again and again 
by the fiail of patient and persistent thought. 
I do not believe that these fundamental parallel- 



MISSION TO THE NATIONS. 



233 



isms have ever appeared to Mr. Spencer him- 
self. But God has made him (unconsciously 
to himself) the great collaborator of such facts 
from all races and times as when placed to- 
gether and thoroughly analyzed, demonstrate that 
the underlying doctrines of human nature and of 
the Holy Bible are the same. I say the same ; I 
do not say similar. 

But I go farther than Herbert Spencer in this 
and announce that after full development, under 
differentiating laws and environments, that natur- 
ally lead to heterogeneous products, then the 
spiritual wave comes in and makes the heterogene- 
ous homogeneous. The world is not far enough 
advanced in its development to afford as many 
multiplied demonstrations as Mr. Spencer finds in 
his hemisphere of truth. I say hemisphere and not 
sphere, because Mr. Spencer, like almost all other 
sheer scientists, ranges only through half the sphere 
of truth, and leaves the other half uninvestigated. 
This is why science (so called) is often atheistic. 
The other hemisphere of truth which Mr. Spencer 
and company have not entered is that which I now 
propose to explore, and whiJst time will only per- 
mit a bald outline, yet it will give us a general idea 
of the Divine drift, flowing through the Divine plan, 
producing products worthy of a God. That plan 
has behind it a purpose ; that purpose is human 
interior homogeneity from human exterior heter- 



234 



THIS SABBA TH LAND AND ITS 



ogeneity, which is yet to retain its exterior heter- 
ogeneity. That plan at first proceeded through 
one human being operating upon other proximate 
human beings. Now that plan, according to the 
phases of the times is proceeding to work on a more 
extensive scale, by making one nation operate upon 
many nations, not to produce human uniformity 
but to effect interior human homogeneity, and yet 
retain exterior heterogeneity. The natural laws 
produce divergencies ; the spiritual laws pro- 
duce convergencies ; the former prepared for the 
latter, the latter completes the work of the former. 
This brings me to my theme, This Sabbath Land 
and its Mission to the Nations." 

As men were chosen to operate upon men in the 
beginning of the spiritual development, so now 
nations are chosen to operate on nations. Where 
shall we look for the nation that bears the marks, 
that carries the credentials of apostolicity to the 
other nations in any preeminent sense ? We look 
over China, the most populous nation, but her 
stagnant millions have evidentl}^ no high commis- 
sion to the rest of the world, from the high source 
of things, except it be the mission of conservatism. 
We investigate India, the next in population, and 
discover no signs of commanding progress in the 
Dreamy Hindoo." The other nations of Asia are 
out of the question, and as for Africaand Austral- 
asia there are few signs of cosmopoliie advance- 



MISSION TO THE NA TIONS. 



235 



luent in either continent. We come to continental 
Europe and we find her various nations straining 
under great standing armies, and balancing diplo- 
macies which absorb their strength and materialize 
their motives. 

Entering England, we discover the heraldess of 
the great work, on the very eve of whose accom- 
plishment we stand. Coming to America and look- 
ing southward, we see no leader of the hot heart 
of the world that pants for freedom. Looking 
northward we descry an expansive territory, which 
is a mere dependency of Britain. Where, then, 
shall we look for that great administratrix, whose 
mission of humanity, civility, evangelicity and con- 
sequent interior human homogeneity is to all other 
nations of the earth? There is but one answer, 
and that is, the Commonwealth of America. It 
looks, at first sight, selfish, and perhaps, to some 
who have not thought this through, silly, to make 
such a statement as this to an intelligent and 
mighty audience like you ; but, have patience, and 
I will present such proofs as have set my own 
mind and heart in this direction. And I do not do 
this, I trust, through either vain vaunting on the 
one hand, or excessive patriotism on the other. If 
T were living in Patagonia, with the same knowl- 
edge and impressions I now possess, I would 
express the same important inter-evangelistic doc- 
trine, for the following weighty reasons : 



236 



THIS SABBA TH LAND AND ITS 



(i) This land long lay embosomed in the ocean, 
hidden from the eye of the rest of the world. 
None but a few aborigines, who probably came 
in some stray skiff that floated from some prox- 
imate point of Asia, were in the land. Here, 
through the long, lone ages, it waited in silence, 
maturing its forests, its prairies, its metals and min- 
erals, for its destined populations. God could have 
conveyed Noah here in his ark, or Abraham with 
his faith, or Nimrod with his bow, or Moses with 
his law. He could have put it into the mind of 
Pythagoras, or Archimedes, or Alexander, or 
Caesar, to seek these shores. He could have in- 
spired the Syrians or Phoenicians to sail hither ; 
but the fact that they never set out is presumptive 
evidence the Divine Supervisor of human events 
did not want them to come. The world was not 
ready ; the Church was not ripe ; the people were 
not prepared for the great social, political and 
religious emancipation which are the necessary 
factors in a nation that could be fitly chosen to 
bless all the other nations of the earth with civil, 
social, material, educational and evangelistic eman- 
cipation. 

You will now notice a strange coincidence, show- 
ing that when America was to be unveiled to the 
old world, that old world was to be prepared to 
populate it with a new life. Just as a great gaunt 
heroic Florentine was crying, O, Florence, the 



A//SS/OX TO THE NATIONS 



237 



Church must be renewed, the Bible is the true 
guide, the Christ is the true pope, love to God and 
love to neighbor must be the rule of life ; to this 
cause there can be no other outcome than victory ; 
but to me it will be death ; mine shall be the red 
hat of martyrdom.'' Just as the glorious Savo- 
narola was with such words shaking the infamous 
pope, Alexander VI, and all the Italian papacy 
simultaneously, another great Italian was rushing 
from court to court of Europe, seeking exploring 
outfit to sail westward across the Atlantic, in the 
hope of finding a westward course to India, but 
really to discover America. And, finally, as the 
grand Savonarola towered in San Marco as the 
great expositor of the prophets and of Revelations 
as if he himself were a prophet, Columbus had by 
his pleading secured an outfit for his illustrious 
expedition, and was actually on his way to this 
long-shrouded land. 

Dull must be the mind that cannot see in this the 
Divinity marshaling the co-related events to suit 
His own benignant designs for the welfare of the 
human race. The God who inspired Savonarola 
to initiate a new reformation, also inspired Colum- 
bus to discover a new world, to care for and 
develop the rich results of that reformation. 
Columbus, therefore, is a name of which every 
American should be proud. Columbus is a name 
that should have been stamped on this land forever, 



238 THIS SABBA TH LAND AND ITS 

as an acknowledgment of how he had by fortitude 
lifted it up out of the floods before the eyes 
of men determined to be free. Columbus, a brave 
soul, that dared to sail with his convictions against 
a world of scoffers and a storm of scandal. Colum- 
bus, who by his eighteen years of persistent thought, 
explanation and pleading, won a queen to his side, 
and through that queen's supplies, this land was 
discovered. Hear that, O ye who would refuse 
womanhood enfranchisement equal to that of man. 
Ye who would not permit her to vote for civil 
purity and for ecclesiastical law, hear it, and learn 
that woman at the civil polls and woman in the 
General Conference would, by her intuitive sagacity 
and her superior benevolence, prove herself the 
best human friend of both State and Church. 
Material America undiscovered but for Isabella ! 
Spiritual and moral argosies undiscovered, if we 
further refuse womanhood its place in the legisla- 
tive and administrative diplomacies of both Church 
and State. Heed it, ye who would keep her back, 
and break the prejudicial bonds of ages, and set 
her fully free. Thus, then, Columbus, who, white- 
haired with thought at thirty, battled not only 
against the wild, lonely, unkeeled, unexplored, 
ever-expanding deep, but against his one hundred 
seamen, who again and again during those seventy 
strange days would have mutinied and turned back 
but for the imperial grandeur of that one hopeful 



MISSION TO THE NATIONS. 



239 



soul. Columbus, who on his return, was at first 
leted like a lion and then spurned, calumniated 
and imprisoned like a traitor, till finally, death 
disimprisoned his victorious spirit, and coming 
generations, by the perfidious inconstancy of 
man, were left to garland his name with immor- 
tality. One year after next October 12th, the 
world ought to celebrate the quadri- centennial 
of this, the greatest discovery made by man. And 
the name of Columbus will tower high, afar above 
that of Amerigo Vespucci, who by his own craft 
and the stupidity of the times, was able to displace 
that of the real discoverer and engrave his own 
name on this continent ; far above that of Fernando 
Cortez, who, through cupidity, conquered the 
Montezumas ; aye, far above Magellan, Narvaez, 
De Soto, Melendez, Cartier, La Roche, Champlain, 
Cabot, Frobisher, Drake, Gilbert and Raleigh, and 
all other adventurers who came hither, backed by 
avaricious companies, to hunt for gold. Above 
them all, that solitary soul shall stand, in the esteem 
of an admiring and benefited world. Hence, learn 
one lesson, learn it well ; that you are persistently 
to follow your conscience, though all the world is 
in arms against you ; since God is with you, all is 
well, and all shall be better by and by. 

It is well for you also to remember how as dis- 
covery after discovery continued to be made here 
of new territories, by the various explorers, so simul- 



240 



THIS SABBA TH LAND AND ITS 



taneously, in the Old World the reformers Luther, 
Melancthon, Calvin, Knox, Ridley, Latimer and a 
host of others were discovering new inlets of truth, 
new valleys of blessing, and new mountains of vision 
in the Holy Scriptures, and were displa3ang their 
loveliness, to the multitudes whose sons in later days 
would populate this land. 

Nor is it less strange that at the very time the 
patriot fathers were, through the stubbornness of 
King George III, and the political maladministra- 
tions of his minister. Lord North, seriously contem- 
plating a revolt fi'om the exacting and imperious 
domination of Great Britain, there rose up a multi- 
tude of lay evangelists under the rousing preaching 
of Whitefield, and the still more efficient adminis- 
tration of the Wesleys. The doctrines of the 
Lutheran Reformation which had, to a great extent, 
only reached the heads of Protestants, were now 
vitalized with a fresh vitality and visited their 
hearts. Thus, contemporaneously, did the two 
great works proceed, doubtless under a divine 
providence — the emergence of the magnitude and 
fertility of this land on the one side of the Atlantic ; 
the emergence of a divine doctrine, producing new 
specimens of redeemed human lives on the other. 
I call this the harmonics of history. But behind 
the harmonics was the Harmonist. [Hallelujahs.] 

(2) The next important point worth considering 
is the location of this Sabbatic land. How it dif- 



MISSION TO THE NA TIONS. 



241 



fered from that of ancient Canaan ! Canaan, a little 
strip of ragged, rugged, rocky country, graced with 
a few fertile valleys, the chief of which cut it in 
two, and known as Easdraelon ; the other, the 
Shephela, which skirted the sea. A land bounded 
by the red rocks of Edom on the south; the desert 
of Arabia on the east ; the white-hooded mountains 
of Lebanon on the north, and the Mediterranean on 
the west. Beset by Ammonites, Perizzites, Hittites 
Moabites, Philistines on the one hand, and by ban- 
ditti of the desert on the other ; a land with less 
cultivable area than that of New Jersey alone. 

Contrast this with the expansiveness, the fertility, 
the variety, the serenity of this new Canaan. Cut 
off by thousands of miles of ocean on either side 
from the flames of Old World war; capped at either 
end with the crystals that crown the poles; situated 
serenely from all foreign domination, and utterly 
independent of all balances of power; left to pursue 
her own clean, clear God-given way without a 
trammel and without a foe ; widest in its temper- 
ate zone ; narrowest in its torrid ; navigable by 
great rivers ; gemmed with expansive lakes ; graced 
with a thousand blessings to other lands unknown, 
there is nothing left for us but gratitude to the 
Giver, and admiring utilization of the gift. Truly 
we may call it Hephzibah (my delight is in her) and 
Beulah — (married). But it is ours to see to it 
that she is not married to old-world customs, de- 



242 



THIS SABBATH LAND AND ITS 



caying with the wrecks of crime ; not married to 
old-time prejudices and dominations that grind the 
very faces and hearts of the poor; but married to 
that God who, like an Infinite Husband, casts arounc^ 
her the embracing fortresses of the seas and kisses 
her with the crystal lips of the waves. 

Finally, the time came for the first important 
deportation of the prepared Pilgrims to set out for 
this prepared land. Political and ecclesiastical es- 
tablishments in the old world were both against 
God's chosen. They were slaughtered like sheep ; 
they were burned like felons, and those that 
remained of them were exiled in various parts of 
the earth. "Oh, Lord, how long?" rose from many 
a heart in remote dales, glens and deserts. 

Finally, a colony of English refugees, who were 
in Holland for conscience sake, resolved on putting 
the ocean between them and their proscriptionists 
and persecutors. After innumerable difficulties 
they succeeded in embarking in the Mayflower, 
from Plymouth, and one hundred and two souls 
said adieu to tyranny. Pilgrims had been their 
name at Leyden, Holland; Puritans they have been 
called by the historians of America. There was 
Standish, and there Avas Bradford, leaders of the 
most resolute band of men and women that ever 
settled in any country ; resolute because they were 
religious. They would have freedom to worship 
God in spirit and in truth. They would brook no 



MISSION TO THE NATIONS. 



243 



interference with their sense of duty. The Bible 
was their one book ; the Sabbath was their sheet 
anchor. They studied and obeyed the one; they 
sanctified the other. Through unutterable incon- 
venience, deprivation, disease and danger, after 
landing at New Plymouth, they pursued the 
strange tenor of their way. The Winter and shel- 
terless wilderness bore many of them rapidly to 
unknown graves; but that very wilderness they 
turned into a cathedral to worship God. They 
soon were joined by others of kindred spirit. As 
time passed on they multiplied ; as they multiplied 
they kept close to God through Sabbath ministries. 
And so that serene Sabbath devotion instructed 
their minds with truth, inspired their hearts with 
love, and spread a sacred halo round their lives, 
that began to glow far and near. 

O, blessed year 1620, and blessed month De- 
cember, and glorious day Monday eleventh, 
when, after a Sabbath of devotions, the Pilgrim 
Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock. Here was the 
nucleus of the young nation's life. PloUanders 
might settle in and around New York; Episco- 
palian English might colonize Virginia ; Roman 
Catholics might populate Maryland, and Quakers 
Pennsylvania; but, Massachusetts, it was thou that 
furnished heart and brains for all of them in the 
time of trouble; it was thou protested against 
George the Third's intolerant domination ; it was 



244 



THIS SABBA TH LAND AXD ITS 



thou threw Lord North's diplomatic tea into thy 
harbor ; it was thou roused the crunching Hon from 
his lair and " fired the shot heard round the w^orld." 
Because th}^ Sabbath-guarding God was with thee ; 
because thou w^ast true to Him, He could not be 
false to thee. And so, through all the succeeding 
vicissitudes of this nation's life, the might of Mas- 
sachusetts has been felt through ever}^ State, by 
every change, and God delay the time when, before 
the persiflage of an iniquitous Sunday press, and 
an intolerant invasion of foreign criminals, thy 
statutes, thy example, thy purity and thy prowess 
shall be forgotten. Nay, rather let the sacred prin- 
ciples that were in thee and made thee great, con- 
tinue, and spread, and ramify, and differentiate in 
various forms, till all these fortj^-two States shall 
be restrung with thy Sabbath-keeping customs and 
thy man -building actions. [Aniens.] 

Thus, then, we see God chose the right kind 
of human stock to found the new nation liere. If 
He had selected the Irish, then the curses of Roman- 
ism would have been rampant ; if He had chosen 
the French, then infidelity would have prevented 
integration; if he had chosen the German, then 
rationalism and Sabbath prostitution would have 
ruined us ; if He had chosen the royalists of 
Britain, then we should still have been a mere 
tributary offering, the ignoble perfume of flunkey- 
ism, to that royal baccaratist, the Prince of 



MISSION TO THE NATIONS. 245 



Wales. But God chose His own people, and 
hence His own are determined to defend His 
cause at risk of all things, and to spread the glory 
and honor of His name through all the earth. [Hal- 
lelujah.] O, land of God ! Sabbath land ! Jehovah 
calls thy faithful Hephzibah and thee He nameth 
Beulah. [Hallelujahs.] 
Thus three facts are plain : 

1. God permitted this new world to be discov- 
ered at the best time. 

2. In it He has given us the best located and the 
most richly endowed segment of the earth's sur- 
face. 

3. In it He planted the best human stock on the 
planet. 

And from these three facts, judging by the analo- 
gies of both nature and history, as well as by the 
suggestions of intuition, I am disposed to think 
tjiat the great Administrator of human affairs, pro- 
poses to emancipate all the other nations of the 
earth by this land, and that, according to the text, 
these nations shall call this land blessed. 

Again, it is presumable Jehovah has the blessing 
of the nations of the world in view through Amer- 
ica, because of the cosmopolite population that He 
directs to these shores. We are unique in this re- 
gard. No nation under heaven has so great variety 
of people as this republic. There is scarce a nation 



246 THIS SABBA TH LAND AND ITS 



on the globe but has sent its deputies here. But is 
not this an evil ? Would it not have been better to 
have limited immigration, and closed our ports to 
all but a selected few who can prove by culture and 
wealth that they are worthy ? Yes, if you want to 
ruin this Republic and bring upon us the scathing 
scath of an eternal malediction, exclude the pauper 
and the poor. Ninety-nine out of every hundred peo- 
ple have come hither because they were poor. The 
rich did not need to come, and so they stayed 
at home. And if I were to make an analysis and 
trace back to the original emigrant trunk, the 
various millionaires and influential citizens of this 
land, I would find that those trunks were in most 
cases ragged, stormbeaten and gnarled by the sore 
trials and storms of the old world — trials which 
became so tense that they drove them to poverty 
and emigration. Thus hath God chosen in this 
sense the weak men of the world to confound the 
mighty, and the men that were not to bring to 
naught the men that were, that no flesh may glory 
in His presence." 

But it may be said, what will be the result of so 
much intermingling of racial stock. Do not so 
many intermixtures weaken race ? Just the oppo- 
site, if those intermixtures are under the generaliz- 
ing wisdom of the Lord. Amid such interming- 
ling there is the better chance for the procession of 
that basal law of life, the survival of the fittest." 



MISSION TO THE NA TIONS. 



247 



Then, too, there is presumptive evidence that 
God intends this Beulah to bless the nations from 
the reflex influence of the lives of those that came 
from other lands. I make no extravagant statement 
when I say there is not a nation on the globe to- 
day but is in one way or another being molded, 
instructed, inspired, developed, physically, intel- 
lectually, industrially, commercially, mechanically, 
civilly, morally, philanthropically and religiously, by 
the influence of the successes of those who come 
here. 

If I had time to take up each nation one by one 
nothing would be easier demonstrated than this. 
But I must keep to my subject and proceed further- 
more to state that it is evident God intends to bless 
the other nations through this commonwealth on 
account of the unprecedented powers He has given 
us. 

If God give a man superior knowledge, virtue or 
tact it is for the purpose of blessing some one who 
lacks what he has. It is a law of nature that the 
strong shall help the weak ; it is a law of barbarity 
that the strong shall devour the weak. If God 
give a community a surplusage of wealth, genius 
and influence it is not only for the purpose of help- 
ing that particular community, but that through 
that community others may be aided. And so, if 
God give a nation a surplusage of gifts and bless- 
ings He no doubt intends to bless therewith that 



248 



THIS SABBA TH LAND AND ITS 



particular nation, but He furthermore intends that 
that nation shall bless other nations. That God 
has blessed you in a most marked manner no inves- 
tigator can for a moment doubt. He has blessed 
your farmers, your miners, your merchants, your 
mechanics, your traders, your teachers and profes- 
sors and preachers as they never have been blessed 
in any other land, so that there is more wealth now 
in the United States, made by the people of these 
States, than was in the whole world when Columbus 
discovered the country nearly four hundred years 
ago. And this wealth is increasing rapidly, and is 
to continue to increase. 

The Baltimore Manufacturers Record states — 

" The business men of this country are too apt to forget the 
soundness of America's vast progress. The United States is to-day 
almost the only great country in the world whose future is brighter 
than its past. Great Britain has in many respects reached the 
limit of its greatness. It can no longer be the manufacturing 
centre of the world, for we have taken the foremost position in 
that line. Its vast iron and steel business is yearly increasing in 
cost of production, while ours is decreasing. It cannot meet the 
world's ever growing demand for iron and steel, because it can- 
not increase its prodnction to any great extent in competition 
with this country. It produced no more pig iron in i8go, not- 
withstanding the high prices prevailing, than in 1882, while we 
more than doubled our output. Much of its ore it imports from 
far distant regions. Its cotton is all imported. It spends about 
$750,000,000 a year for foreign food stuffs. On the continent 
every nation is burdened with debt, and none can ever hope to 
pay off its obligations. Measured by their natural resources and 
their possibilities, they are bankrupt. In all of them the cost of 



MISSION TO THE NATIONS. 



249 



production and of living is steadily increasing. In the United 
States we have scarcely laid the foundation of our future great- 
ness. In natural resources we are richer than all of Europe com- 
bined; we are paying our debts faster than they are due; we have 
barely scratched the ground in the development of our mineral 
wealth; we are rich enough to stand a decrease last year of goo- 
000,000 bushels of grain as compared with 1889, on account of 
bad weather; we are rich enough in addition to this to send 
$70,000,000 in gold to Europe within a few months without creat- 
ing any financial trouble, and that, too, after Europe had unloaded 
on us millions of dollars of our stocks, because our securities 
were the only ones in the world that found a cash market when 
the Barings and others were trying to save themselves. In ten 
years, from 1880 to 1890, we have added $2,000,000,000 to our 
capital invested in manufactures, an increase of nearly seventy- 
five per cent. In the same time the value of our manufactured 
products has risen from $5,300,0000,000 to $8,600,000,000, a gain 
of $3,300,000,000; or, in other words, we are producing manufac- 
tured goods at the rate of $3,300,000,000 a year more than we 
were ten years ago. The increase in capital invested in manufac- 
tures in ten years, from 1880 to 1890, was greater than the entire 
amount of capital invested in 1870, or only twenty years ago. In 
these ten years the growth of our manufacturing interests was 
greater than the growth from the settlement of America up to 1870. 
In these ten years we have built 75,000 miles of railroad, almost 
as much as our total mileage in 1880. 

Now, the question arises, What are we going to 
do with these enormous augmentations to our 
wealth ? I answer, We are either going to ruin 
ourselves, or we are going to save ourselves and 
the world. Which shall it be? The answer 
lies in whether we shall use our Sabbaths to 
teach the masses of money-making people how 



250 THIS SABBA TH LAND AND ITS 

to benefit themselves and others by their wealth ; 
or, whether, untaught and uninspired, they shall 
prostitute their Sabbaths in finding means to spend 
their money in ruining themselves, and conse- 
quently the nation. 

Thus, at a glance, it is seen that everything 
hinges on sanctifying the Sabbath. The greatest 
opportunity ever enjoyed by any nation of blessing 
the world is open to us. But the greatest oppor- 
tunity of ruining ourselves through that very same 
opportunity is also open to us. Which shall it be? 
O heaven, which shall it be? That is the ques- 
tion. The Sabbath, again I say, is the pivotal axle 
that shall roll us one way or the other, up or down, 
forward or backward, according as we use it. The 
destiny of all the other days of the week depends 
on how we use the Sabbath. The destiny of the 
units, the families, the towns, the cities, the 
people of this country depends on how we use the 
Sabbath. If they use it to dissipate, and drink, 
and carouse, and learn the black arts, and to prac- 
tice the devil's doctrines, then the Sabbath shall 
damn us. But if we use it to rest, recuperate, to 
instruct, to educate, to inspire, to elevate, and to 
learn the bright arts, and to practice beautiful 
graces, then the Sabbath shall enthrone us; and 
the people of this Republic shall, through their 
various successes in art, in science, in literature, in 
mechanics, in finance, in industry, in humanity, in 



Mission to the na tions. 



education, in evangelism, and all that variegated 
web of national, civil, domestic and ecclesiastical 
blessings implied under these genetic heads, rise so 
high and spread so wide their elevating influence^ 
that they shall take the whole world in their arms 
of love and liberty, and lift it up from its bondage 
and tears, to shine as the most resplendent jewel in 
Jehovah's crown. [Amens and glories,] 



The Necessity of Sabbath Conservation 
in Our Great Cities. 



Psl. cxxvii, I. — "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman 
waketh but in vain." 



^*\yl7"HAT a fermenting vat (says Carlyle) lies 
^ ^ simmering and hid in the great city.'' 
The record of great cities is the record of the 
race. They have taken the most prominent 
part in politics, science, art, literature, evangelism, 
de-vangelism and destiny of both men and nations. 
Extinguish the history of Babylon and Nineveh, 
and you blot out the history of Persia. Abolish 
the history of Athens, and you abolish the history 
of Greece. Annihilate the archives of Rome, and 
you ruin the records of ancient Italy. What the 
cities of Egypt were, the valley of the Nile was. 
Palestine rose and fell with Jerusalem, for great 
cities are the commercial aggregations of the 
resources, characters and lives of nations. Paris, 



NECESSITY OF SABBA TH CONSER VA TION. 253 



Berlin, St. Petersburg, London, focus and repre- 
sent the features of France, Prussia, Russia and 
England, respectively. These great capitals are 
the creations of their respective countries, and by 
reflex influence re-create the countries of which 
they are the products. Countries nurture the 
cities into strength, but after they have become 
strong, they mould and control the countries. 

Our own large cities are approaching maturity. 
New York, Brooklyn, Newark, Philadelphia, Chi- 
cago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, San Francisco, 
New Orleans, and the other four hundred and 
thirty-two at the past and present rate of in- 
crease, will control this Commonwealth ten years 
from now. The gravitation toward these centers 
is relatively immense in this country. The ratio in 
fifty years has advanced from four and a half per 
cent, to twenty-two and a half per cent. From 
1790 to 1880 the population of this country in- 
creased thirteen times. In the same period the 
population of our cities increased eighty-six 
times. In 1800 there were only six cities with 
a population over 8,000. In 1880 we had two 
hundred and eighty-six cities with a population 
over 8,000. In 1890 we have four hundred and 
forty-three cities with a population over 8,000. 
The influence of these four hundred and forty-three 
cities on the Republic is almost resistless even 
12 



THE NECESSITY OF SABBATH 



now. That influence will be all controlling a 
quarter of a century from to-day. 

Whilst it is with pride we point to the power, 
population, wealth, learning, present and prospect- 
ive prosperity of these cities, yet it is with appre- 
hension and dismay we look upon their morals. It 
is with a feeling akin to agony and despair we con- 
template their Sabbath-breaking, dishonesties, 
saloons, theatres, libertines and houses of death. 
These I dread more than socialisQi, anarchism, 
rationalism, and the hounds of war. These 
corrode, corrupt, eat up honor and virtue, and 
prepare for the desolating revenges of histor}^ 
which overtook Babylon, Jerusalem and Palm3^ra. 
The Erinnys of an outraged justice are in pursuit, 
and like Byron, in his Childe Harold, succeeding 
poets, alas, again may sing : 

" The Niobe of Nations, there she stands, 

Childless and crownless in her voiceless woe." 

It is not to be regretted that the old world is 
pouring in upon us her surplus populations, but it 
is to be lamented that she pours in their shameless 
depravities — depravities which could not be 
brooked at home, and cannot with safety be toler- 
ated abroad. 

As in the time of Tacitus Rome had become the 
colhivies gentium — ''the sink of nations" — so in our 
time, our large cities are becoming cesspools of the 



COMSER VA TION IN 0 UR GREA T CITIES. 255 



putrid streams that flow from the old world — effete 
through the drunkenness of crime. Scarcely one- 
third of the country's population is foreign by 
birth or parentage, but yet, such is the strength of 
the disposition, of foreigners to settle in our cities 
that sixty-two per cent, of the population of 
Cincinnati are foreign, sixty-three per cent, of 
Boston, eighty-three of Cleveland, eighty-eight 
of New York, and ninety-one of Chicago, with an 
equal average per cent, in Newark. These are 
surprising facts, but the reason for alarm is not in 
the figures, but in the social ideas, the political 
affinities, the hate of religion, the love of license, 
the ignorance of liberty, the power of infidelity, 
the prevalence of anarchy, the domination of 
drunkenness, and, above all, the abandonment of 
God. These are the forces that sweep out salva- 
tion, peace and happiness, and bring in restlessness, 
despair and destruction. Think of another truth. 
There are 200,000 saloons in the country. This, 
estimating the population at 60,000,000, gives one 
saloon to every 300 people. Bad enough, indeed ; 
but when we come to Brooklyn we find one to 
every 250 of the population ; to Chicago, one for 
every 179; to Jersey City, one to every 150; to 
New York, one to every 125 ; to Cincinnati, one to 
every 124; Newark, one to every 130. Thus, you 
see, there are about double the number of drink- 
ing places in the large cities in proportion to the 



256 



THE NECESSITY OF SABBATH 



population that there are in the rural districts. 
This is a pretty sure sign, that there is double the 
general corruption of tastes and manners. 

Now, let us see what is the relation of the Church 
of God to this immense growth of city population 
and wickedness. Is the Church keeping pace with 
this incoming population ? Sorry am I to have to 
say, that the Church is far behind relatively, and ap- 
pears to be losing actual hold of the masses. There 
are a million of people in and around New York, 
over whom the Church, has as little saving power 
as if they lived in the centre of Africa 

I have examined statistics and conversed with 
ministers, statesmen and laymen of the various de- 
nominations on this question, and find that, rela- 
tively speaking, the Presbyterian, Congregational, 
Reformed Dutch, Baptist and Methodist Churches, 
are ten-fold less in influence and membership than 
they were thirty years ago in the city of Brooklyn, 
and what is true of Brooklyn is also true of New 
York. Sunday newspapers, Sabbath dissipations, 
saloons, theatres, places of vile resort, gambling 
dens, prison population, suicides and insanities have 
relatively outstripped the increase of population ; 
but the Protestant churches have relatively fallen 
far behind. This condition of affairs is preparing 
the way for such scenes of violence, rapine, and 
murder as will throw into the shade, the terrors of 
the French Revolution. What are the causes of 
this dreadful outlook? 



CONSER VA TION IN 0 UR GREA T CITIES. 257 



I dare not locate them altogether in rationalism, 
agnosticism, materialism and immigrated infidelity. 
I must look deeper and nearer home, and when I 
look I find them in facts which you will bear me 
witness I have been preaching against. I find 
one of these facts in the false attitude that 
the vast body of professing Christians assume 
toward the people. That attitude is one of general 
indifference about the personal salvation, of the for- 
eigners and strangers who come into our cities. 
The feeling of the great majority of professing 
Christians, appears to be, now we are in the church 
we are couA/erted ; we are all right if we are faith- 
ful ; we shall receive the crown of life ; hallelujah, 
we are saved, and we are going home to God. 

Aye, what are you saved to ? Saved to sublime 
selfishness ; saved to self-conceit and abominable 
exclusivism ; saved to an un-evangelic morality 
and an un-Christly churchism, that are as barbaric 
and heathenish in the sight of God, and angels as 
was the phariseeism of Judea, or as is the idolatry 
of Brahma or Buddha. 

Verily I say unto you, if you are merely trying 
selfishly to save your own soul, you have not 
learned nor experienced the first principles of the 
Christian religion ; you cannot save your soul 
and be selfish, for the very first and all-pervad- 
ing principle of Christianity is loving, living, 
undying, laborious activity for the lost ; a loving. 



THE NECESSITY OF SABBATH 



earnest, sincere anxiety and action which will 
speak to others, pray for others, implore, beseech, 
obtest and cry for others ; aye, which will lay 
down life itself for the salvation of the ruined. 

Now, where in the churches do we find this kind 
of Christianity ? Once in a while we meet such a 
soul ; but where is the church whose members m 
the mass, measure up to this unselfishness of Christ 
and of Paul. Let the churches of these cities get 
at the throne of grace, such an unselfish, burning, 
soul-saving spirit, as Christ had when he laid down 
His life for redemption, and as Paul had when he 
could have wished himself "accursed for the sake of 
his kinsmen according to the flesh," and let them 
move out upon advancing hosts of Germans, Jews, 
Italians, saloonists, Sabbath-breakers, and haters 
of churches, and you will see such a revolution as 
will imparadise in the arms of salvation, this million 
of our fellow citizens in and around New York 
who now scout the Sabbath and scorn the Church. 

Another fact that accounts for the fearful inun- 
dation of infidelity in our midst, is the misapplica- 
tion of what little unselfish zeal we have as churches. 
We have been reading, thinking and praying about 
India and China, Africa and the Western frontier, 
and we have been giving to send out missionaries 
to these regions beyond, and we have been forget- 
ting to stretch out the hand of help to the heathen 
at home. God forbid that I should advise less help 



CON SEE VA TION IN O UR GREA T CITIES. 259 



to the heathen abroad ; I don't think we do half 
enough for them ; but God help us to see that the 
barbarians at our very doors, have a Christian claim 
to all we can say, pray, give or do to help them to 
see and seek the w^orld's Redeemer. 

What else are we in this world for, my hearers? 
Is it to join a church, give to its support, offer up 
a few general prayers, observe moral lives, live in 
fashionable homes, conduct respectable business, 
make money, save the most of it, to spoil our rela- 
tives, and die and have the church sing us to heaven, 
when God Almighty shall appear and say to us 
from His judgment throne: Depart from me ye 
cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil 
and his angels. For I was an hungered, and ye 
gave me no meat ; I was thirst3s and ye gave me no 
drink : I was a stranger and ye took me not in : 
naked, and ye clothed me not : sick and in prison 
and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer 
him saying. Lord, when saw we thee an hun- 
gered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick or 
in prison, and did not minister unto thee ? Then 
shall he answ^er them saying, verily, I say unto you, 
inasimich as ye did it not to one of the least of these, 
ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into 
everlasting punishment." — Matthew xxv. 

Another fact that accounts for this deluge of 
infidelities in our large cities, is the misdirection we 
give to our Sunday-school zeal. Now I am tread- 



26o THE NECESSITY OF SABBATH 



ing on delicate ground, and may say some things 
unpalatable. But let the truth be spoken, though 
the heavens fall, and let the temple of Dagon be 
uptorn, if Samson perish in the ruins. I hold, 
from my experience and observation, that some 
Sabbath-school teachers and officers appear more 
anxious to teach the lesson, keep up the number of 
their classes and their school, than to get the pupils 
converted to Christ and united to the church. I 
am now speaking on general, and not on particular 
terms — of schools generally, and not of our own 
particularly. To teach the lesson intelligently and 
thoroughly is good ; to keep up the number of the 
classes and prestige of the school is excellent ; but 
if you succeed eminently in doing both, and fail to 
lead the scholars to give themselves, body and soul 
to Christ and His Church, the whole of 3^our suc- 
cesses are deplorable and remediless failures. And 
now with these three facts in mind : 

(1) The false attitude of the great mass of church 
members toward the world. 

(2) The misapplication of much of our zeal in 
neglecting the heathen at our doors. 

(3) The want of direct work for powerful, per- 
sonal salvation that unites the rising youth to 
Christ and the Church. 

Let us see how we can so affect ourselves 
as to avoid these dangers, and do our full 



CONSER VA TlOISf IN O UR GREA T CITIES. 261 



share toward staying- the invading tides of 
worldliness and wickedness with which onr great 
cities are already blighted. And first, remember 
the example of Jesus in regard to cities. He made 
them the centers, the strategic points of his preach- 
ing. Saint Matthew says : " And it came to pass, 
when Jesus had made an end of commanding His 
disciples. He departed thence to teach and to 
preach in their cities." Luke represents Him as 
saying : I must preach the Kingdom of God to 
other cities also, for therefore am I sent." When 
on great field days He preached in rural districts, 
it was to the cities that emptied themselves to hear 
Him ; hence we read, " The whole city came out 
to meet Jesus.'' So important did He deem the 
salvation of the Jewish capital that He wept over 
it, crying : Oh, that thou hadst known, even thou, 
in this thy day the things that belong unto thy 
peace," and went through it sobbing, " Oh, Jerusa- 
lem, Jerusalem, * * how often would I have 
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gath- 
ereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
not." The cities of Capernaum, Chorazin, Beth- 
saida, Jericho, Jerusalem, were the head-centers of 
His entire ministry, and whilst He often retired to 
the country to commune with His Father, yet, 
with the exception of His sermon on the mount, 
which was intended for His disciples, FIc delivered 
most of His great discourses in the cities. He 



262 



THE NECESSITY OF SABBATH 



also instructed His disciples to follow His exam- 
ple. Into whatsoever city or town ye enter," etc. 

When they persecute you in one city, flee unto 
another." And among His last words were, Be- 
ginning at Jerusalem." 

This was His policy, and it was both sensible 
and successful. He knew that the word thoroughly 
preached in the cities would sound out in all the 
region round about." He and His Apostles made 
the cities great speaking trumpets, which branched 
out their voices through all the land. It was a 
masterly diplomacy, a politic stroke of strategy, be- 
cause these were the attractive hives of human 
beings, to whom the world lent its ears. Paul 
(though of the Apostolic band, abortive born), 
recognized this masterly strategy, and commenced 
and continued his marvelous ministry amid 
the densest masses of human beings he could 
find. Damascus, Jerusalem, Antioch, Paphos, 
Derbe, Lystra, PhiUipi, Thessalonica, Berea, 
Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, Rome, were the great 
cities of the world in his time, and there he 
preached nearly all his great discourses and wrote 
all his epistles. This accounts for his unprece- 
dented success. 

But alas, there has been a great mistake in 
America made by the Protestant churches in these 
last three decades. We have been opposing and 
counteracting to a great extent the plan so pru- 



CONSERVATION IN OUR GREAT CITIES. 263 

dently presented by Christ and so faithfully exe- 
cuted by Paul. We have to a deplorable extent, as 
a national ministry and membership, been founding 
and fostering- feeble churches, in sparsely settled 
rural regions, and neglecting to focus the bright, 
burning rays of the glorious Gospel on the masses 
in our great cities. We of course have some fine 
churches, and powerful preachers in the cities, but 
what are they among so many?'' There is more 
spiritual destitution in New York and Brooklyn 
than exists in any other part of the country, and 
yet these are the two cities which should, on 
account of their commercial relations w4th the 
world, be kept beating highest, cleanest and mighti- 
est under the banner of Immanuel. Nevertheless, 
below Fourteenth street in New York is a popula- 
tion of 550,000, with but 60,000 sittings of Protest- 
ant churches, sittings which are constantly decreas- 
ing, and the outlying wards of Brooklyn are known 
to be in a worse condition. Now you will say, 
why do you speak about New York and Brooklyn ? 
Because the same state of affairs has begun to 
appear in our own city, and by the appalling pic- 
tures, on the other side the river, I desire to rouse 
you to take the field in the name of the Lord God 
of Hosts, and stem the tide of worldliness and un- 
churchliness that is sweeping up against our 
breasts at this very hour. 

What are we going to do about it? I hear some 



264 THE NECESSITY OF SABBATtt 



rationalistic philosopher exclaim: Let us do some- 
thing- new. Let us cast around for some new plan 
and pursue it with manly intelligence and vigor." 

" New occasions teach new duties; 

Time makes ancient good uncouth; 
They must upward still and forward 
Who would keep abreast of truth," 

The first two lines of this stanza may be made to 
contain a great and grave blunder, however poetic, 
however scientific. Such novel experimentation 
suits very well in agriculture or manufacturing, in 
mechanical contrivances and practical sciences, and 
even in physical pharmaceutics. But the spiritual 
sphere does not change ; like gravity it is still the 
same. Its laws, its forces, its methods of operation, 
so far as fundamentals are concerned, are fixed. 

The old truth and the old plan may be capable 
of many adaptations and ramifications, but the 
moment we diverge by subtle modifications, and 
plausible differentiations, from the fountain-head, 
that moment the conductors of power become 
clogged, and befogged and we are left in our apos- 
tacy to suffer ignominious failure. 

The fundamental facts, forces and plans promul- 
gated bj the Word of God must be as strictly obey- 
ed, as must the laws of electricity by the electrician. 
As in the natural sphere there are inerrant laws, 
forces and methods of operation that must not be 



CONSER VA TlON IN 0 UR GREA T CITIES. 265 



relegated to obscurity, and cannot be impinged 
with impunity, so also, in the moral and spiritual 
realm are mighty, majestic principles that underlie 
and pervade all successes. One of these principles 
is promulgated in our text, Except the Lord keep 
the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." What 
this city needs most of all, therefore, is more of the 
Divine guardianship of the Almighty. We may 
sing and soothe ourselves with — 

" Right forever on the scaffold, 

Wrong forever on the throne; 
But that scaffold sways the future, 

And within the dim unknown 
Sitteth God amid the shadows 

Keeping guard above His own." 

And this is excellent, but what about the great 
sweltering, swaggering, seething, drunken, dissi- 
pating masses that have taken themselves from 
neath that guardian care, and are by their numbers 
and their sins making us a second Nineveh or 
Babylon? How can we save them ? That is the 
question." 

The primordial principles of God's word shoAV 
us very plainly, and we have no other standard we 
dare trust. One foremost practical principle 
teaches, get thoroughly saved yourselves. The 
pentecostal fires had to come and cleanse, illumine, 
inspire and thrill, even the personal disciples of 



266 THE NECESSITY OF SABBA TH 



Jesus, before they were fit to move a hand toward 
saving the world. The same practical principle is 
as true now as then, and always shall be true. 
What, then, we first of all need for the renovation 
of Newark, and the salvation of the various slaves 
of Satan in this city, is such a power of the Holy 
One within us, and upon us that it shall be 
not we that speak, but the Holy Ghost within 
us." This is the old-time power. But it is also the 
new-time power [Amens], because there is no other 
in heaven or earth that can edify saints and save 
sinners. All Christians in all times who have had 
their hearts, minds, words and manner filled with 
this Holy Ghost, sent from the Father by the Son 
as His ubiquitous representative, have ably fulfilled 
their mission and left behind them halos of glory 
and gardens of the Lord full of the ''trees of right- 
eousness." And all professing Christians who have 
permitted themselves to be decoyed aside to some 
one, or some thing else, have left behind them a 
heritage of desolation. Now then with this his- 
toric and scriptural evidence before us, it is clear 
what we are first to do to emancipate Newark. 

We are to seek by personal prayer and faith, for 
the fulness of the spirit. Such a fulness as Avill fill 
all our feelings, thoughts, words and acts with the 
convicting and converting power of Almighty 
God. [Amens.] 

Such a fulness of blessing as shall make us over- 



CONSERVATION IN OUR GREAT CITIES. 267 



flow, as the abundance of water makes the spring. 
[Amens.] 

Such a fuhiess as lifts us up above sin, and fear, 
and diffidence, and makes us easy and able in 
speaking to, and pleading- with sinners to come and 
be saved. [Amens.] 

Such a fulness as makes us happy, glad, raptur- 
ous, and leads us to take chief delight in making 
others so. When we secure and retain and live in 
such a blessed state as this, we shall not live for 
naught. Even David understood this when he 
pi-ayed ; Restore unto me the joy of tJiy salvation^ 
then shall I teach transgressors thy ways and sin- 
ners shall be converted unto thee." 

After securing such exalted, joyful power for 
ourselves by prayer, faith and fidelity, next comes 
the duty of strengthening ''the brethren" and sis- 
ters of the churches. Bring them all in. Lead, 
gently lead, and lift, lovingly lift them all up, to the 
same mount of blessing. I say all. [Amens.] 

This can be easily accomplished by the inspiring 
songs you sing ; by the fervent prayers you utter ; 
by the glorious example you show ; by the ele- 
vated, bright, beautiful life you lead. [Hallelujahs.] 
I have found nothing easier and more delightsome 
in my ministry, than the blessed work of encourag- 
ing the discouraged, of strengthening the weak, of 
comforting them that mourn in Zion, of fusing into 
flaming heralds the lukewarm ones, and placing 



26S THE NECESSITY OF SABBATH 



arms of pity, of sympathy and of love around the 
backslidden, turning them round and cheering 
them on up to the heights of joy, through the hope 
which is in Christ. [Hallelujahs.] 

Then having been filled with the glory of the 
Holy Ghost ourselves, and having led the whole 
church all along the line, men, women and chil- 
dren, rich and poor, learned and illiterate, up to 
the same celestial rapture, what is our next step ? 
That next step is to go after and bring home the 
sinner. Here comes the tug of war. The sin- 
ners in these times, and in this place have be- 
come intrenched in the saloons, in the clubs, in the 
pleasures of the world and in the deceitfulness of 
riches. Moreover, multitudes of them are said to 
be prejudiced against the churches and the Chris- 
tians. What is the cause of this? Who is to 
blame for it? What has been working this alien- 
ation? What has been digging this impassable 
gulf between the unsaved people and the church, 
their best friend ? The answer is at hand ; ponder 
it well. The cause of this alienation of many from 
the churches lies in Sabbath desecration. That is 
the scooping scoundrel that has through these 
twenty-five years in our large cities, been digging 
the chasm between the people and the Church of 
God. 

By Sabbath violation they are kept away from 
the churches; they become prepossessed with ad- 



CONSER VA TION IN 0 UR GREA T CITIES. 269 

verse principles, purposes and pursuits. They 
become enamored of pleasure, and license, and 
revelry. They go on bringing their children up, 
after their Sabbath spoliation ways. They are 
shut out from the softening, sweetening hymn; the 
pathetic, uplifting prayer ; the instructive and in- 
spiring truth ; the tender and genial brotherhood 
and sisterhood of Christ ; and so they and theirs 
become morally hard, and corrugated, and gnarled, 
and spiritually deaf, blind and dead, till finally, 
alas, they and theirs fall into the great gloomy 
chasm of despair and destruction which their own 
Sabbath breaking has dug for them. 

Oh, my God ! Is there no help ? Is there no 
remedy? Must these aberrant masses, for 
whom Thy Son has died, be engulfed forever? 
Is there no help ? Yes, there is help. Help only 
in manly, united, sustained Christian effort. Help 
only in the Christian people of Newark laying 
aside their sectarian differences and their political 
prejudices, and coming together as one man and 
demanding from the officers of this city that Sun- 
day desecration shall now and here forever 
cease. [Amens.] 

That Christianity and the Sabbath and the thou- 
sands of poor dupes who enter into its defilement 
with zest, have been trampled on long enough, all 
for the purpose of catering to, and pleasing a for- 
eign element, in hope of securing their political 
support. 



270 



THE NECESSITY OF SABBATH 



That the officials of this city shall either execute 
the city ordinances, in regard to the Sabbath laws 
with the same fidelity that they execute other 
laws, or they must give place to those who 
will execute them. This is a political and civic 
duty that every Christian should take a part in by 
his vote and voice. The city officers, as T have 
shown on a former occasion, are bound by the 
laws of this State and this city to give us a civil 
Sabbath. They themselves know, and everybody 
knows, that they give us an outrageous Sabbath. 
Wagons flying through the streets on business, 
stores open in all quarters, saloons filling the 
vmfortunate with drunkenness, news hucksterers 
and traffickers (those blatant curses of the modern 
city Sabbath), crying all over their secular wares, 
making a human pandemonium here in Newark. 
How, in the name of heaven, can the Lord, (one of 
whose fundamental commands is Remember the 
Sabbath day to keep it holy,") keep in loving guard 
such a city as this ? What else can happen but 
what we see does happen — that men and women 
shall be blasted and blighted, that families shall be 
disrupted, that society shall degenerate, that cor- 
ruption shall ensue, till the curse of God shall 
strike us and turn us into another Sodom. [Cries 
of God have mercy !] 

O Newark ! Newark ! thou art destroying th}^- 
self. But in God is thy help ; now is the time for 



CONSER VA TION IN 0 UR GREA T CITIES. 2 7 1 



Christian men, for all lovers of this city and all 
lovers of their fellow-men, to rise in mass and 
demand the rectification of these shameless, glaring 
Sabbath evils. Then shall the poor, toil-worn and 
unfortunate thousands, who are going to destruc- 
tion through desecration of God's day, stop, think, 
turn and begin to emerge up out of their Sabbath 
follies, and commence to move toward reconstruc- 
tion through the consecration of the Lord's day to 
sacred, instructing and inspiring purposes. 

Before any great religious movement takes place 
in this city, this work must first be done. No 
church, no minister, no member, can reach the 
masses of Sabbath -breakers till this city lifts up 
its civic hand and says, according to the specifica- 
tions of our statutes, " Remember the Sabbath day 
to keep it holy." 

You might as well suppose that the day-school 
teachers of the public schools, could make scholars 
of the pupils if the pupils were all playing 
truant, as to suppose that we can Christianize 
and educate the masses of this city on Sunday, 
when so large a portion of them are making it a 
play day. [Cries, That's so.] 

O ! our God, our hearts bleed for these fallen, 
deceived ones. Do Thou interpose, O Thou most 
mighty, and make such a revelation by Thy Spirit 
of the horrors of Sunday prostitution, to the 
municipal authorities of this city, that they shall 



2 72 NECESSITY OF SABBA TH CONSER VA TION. 

say, We have erred; we have gone too far; w^e 
will go back to the statute book, and we will give 
the City of Newark a civil Sunday. 

I believe this will happen. When it does, 
O ye blood-washed, spirit-inspired pilgrims, be 
ready ! Be ready to be good Samaritans ; be 
ready to pour in the oil and wine ; be ready to 
bandage up the bleeding wounds ; be ready to set 
the wounded victims on your own beasts ; be ready 
to bear them to the hotel (church) of healing and 
of joy ; be ready to say, take care of this poor 
wounded traveler and I will discharge the bills. 
[Aniens and hallelujahs.] Then gathering up and 
bringing in, all these maimed and wounded ones, 
and seeing them restored once more to manhood and 
womanhood, we will lock arms with them and 
each other, and march through this New-Ark of 
probationship to that New-Ark of glory. " Then 
the Lord will keep the city and the watchman will 
not wake in vain." [Amens and glories.] 



Garland of Gratitude. -No. i. 



For the Prosperity of This Land Under 
Sabbath Ministries. 

Psa. Ix, 4 — "Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee 
that it may be displayed because of the truth," 

Psa. cxv, I — "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy 
name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake." 

'T^HE Hebrew D^l here translated banner, 
means a glittering- standard around which 
warriors gather. I shall use this standard 
as the variegated banner, of multiform pros- 
perity in these United States through Sabbatic 
ministries. Without the vitality which flows 
through such sacred ministrations, the tree of the 
Republic should have been a weakling of gnarled 
and stunted growth. But with this vitality per- 
vading roots, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers and 
fruit, that tree has become so ample and umbrage- 
ous, that emancipated millions sing beneath its shade; 
and Jehovah, from whom all blessings flow, has 
given them this multiform ''banner to be displayed, 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 1. 



because of the truth." Turnmg to the first fold of 
this standard, I find — 

He has given us the banner of prosperity in 
initial settlement. When the old world was groan- 
ing under the hard heel of tyranny ; when the 
masses sighed and wept under the remorseless and 
defiant sway of a fierce feudality ; when the people 
wore themselves out under abject servility, to their 
exacting lords, and slavery was the unjust and 
cruel lot of man, this virgin land in all her early 
charms, rose up out of the floods before their 
wondering gaze. It had shone like a strange 
asylum, before adventurous Icelandic and Norwe- 
gian sea kings as early as the tenth century. 

It had shimmered like a new Canaan before 
Spanish explorers in the fifteenth century, and it 
sparkled like a Divine El Dorado, before the avari- 
cious eyes of Europe in the seventeenth century, 
so that French, Spanish, Dutch and English vied 
for its possession. 

Britain (that prophetic chieftainess of mod- 
ern history) procured the lion's share and resolved 
to colonize and defend it. But it was on the 
nth of December, 1620, when the Pilgrim Fathers, 
glowing with the love of God and freedom, landed 
on Plymouth Rock, that the real genetic seeds of 
unity, fraternity, equality and liberty were sown. 

From that day this land of the setting sun, be- 
came the land of the rising sun to all who deter- 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 1. 



mined to be free. Vessels were chartered, thousands 
upon thousands sailed, under the golden marge of 
closing day and reached in safety these shores of 
the morning. 

Great Britain, by boldness in battle and diplo- 
macy at court, secured uninterrupted Northeastern 
sway. 

The French lost their last foothold there when 
the heights of Abraham were captured, by the gal- 
lant, but expiring Wolfe from the great Montcalm. 

And now Britain levied taxes, discouraged de- 
velopment, clasped her strong restraints upon this 
youthful Hercules who, feeling himself cribbed, 
caged, confined, expostulated at first, and finally ex- 
pressed a resolution to be free. This only exasperated 
the victorious lion on the other side the flood, who, 
mid much indignation, sent over 30,000 warriors 
to subdue the refractory and ungrateful child. 

The first sounds of their castigations were heard 
at Lexington, Concord and Boston. It was there 
Britains, misjudging the metal of their foe, hoped 
to quell and crush colonial aspiration. But it was 
there also " The embattled farmers stood and fired 
the shot heard round the world." This shot was 
the slogan that summoned the colonists through- 
out the land, and marshalled them in serried eche- 
lons for action and for arms. 

Appeals to that greatest of Protestant Kings 
(George III) at first were made, declarations of 



276 GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 1, 



colonial rights drawn up, exhortations to unity 
expressed. Hancock exclaimed, amid all conflic- 
tions, in the Colonial Congress, " Let us hang to- 
gether." And Franklin replied facetiously, " Yes, 
let us hang together; for if we do not we must 
hang separately." 

Vacillation seemed for a time the genius of the 
deliberating members. But there was one young 
man blazing with patriotism, and the love of liberty 
who rose amid distracted delegates, and swept 
by his eloquence the wavering into line, as he cried, 

Tarquin and Csesar had each his Brutus, Charles 
the First his Cromwell, and George the Third may 
profit by their example." The royalists shouted 
treason, but Patrick Henry, flaming with the pro- 
phetic message that burned within him, fearlessly 
towered up like a messenger from the Almighty 
and replied, If this be treason make the most of 
it," and went on bearing the main body of the Con- 
gress with him, as he protrayed their wrongs, and 
capped the climax of his seraphic speech with. 

My countrymen, you may do as you please in 
this matter, but as for me, gentlemen, give me lib- 
erty or give me death.'' 

Not from the eloquence of Pym, Hampden, 
Wentworth and Falkland ; not from the impas- 
sioned style and dramatic manner of Lord Chat- 
ham, Fox, Sheridan and Grattan ; not from the 
easy, brilliant oratory of the younger Pitt, the 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 1. 



277 



charming Canning, the epigrammatic Sheil, and 
the practical vigor of Castlereagh, have ever 
flowed more powerful and pregnant utterances. 

The halting Congress thereafter verged toward 
efficient and enthusiastic action. The people 
waited in breathless expectancy the result of its 
deliberations. When, at length, on the Fourth 
of July, 1776 (a day to be forever memor- 
able), Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, rose in 
his place with the Declaration of Independence 
on fire in his heart, the House was hushed to 
solemn stillness as, with flaming tongue, he moved. 

Resolved, that these united colonies are and 
ought to be free and independent States, and that 
all political connection between them and Great 
Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved." The 
crisis had come. The resolution was unanimously 
adopted. The news found the ready and expect- 
ant bellman, and that old bell, which seems pro- 
phetically to have had graven round its rim, 

Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the 
inhabitants thereof," tolled out the tidings of 
political joy. The news flew up the Delaware, 
across New Jersey, over New York, through New 
England, like a sacred emancipation. The voice of 
trumpets, and clangor of bugles were in the air. 
The ubiquitous energy of the popular will was 
swift as lightning and loud as thunder. The clerk 
left his page unwritten on the desk, the youth 
13 



27S GARLAND OP GRATITUDE, No. 1. 



elt himself a man, the veteran forgot his years, 
the mother gave up her darling boy, the pure and 
noble wife, relinquished the husband she adored, 
and the patriots (against the persuasions and the 
plots of royalists) rushed to the battle, as to a feast. 
This is the political crisis which was brought 
about by Sabbath-keeping heroes — a crisis which 
neither Phoebus of Rome, nor Demos of Athens, 
nor reformers in Venice, nor Cromwell nor 
Hampden of England, had dared inaugurate. 
A crisis for which the multiplied, wailing, down- 
trodden millions waited and watched with eyes 
of tears, through the gloom of unpitying ages ; 
a crisis for which philosophers had sighed, and 
philanthropists prayed, and poets wept, and states- 
men planned, and soldiers fought, and yet, on 
account of the tyranny of man, it was long in 
coming. But now it had come. Come to bridge 
the gulf between the rich man's castle and the poor 
man's hovel; come to hew down the assumptions 
of the rich, imperious and proud ; come to lay 
in the very dust the scepters of cruelty, the 
swords of barbarity, and the crowns of an unlimit- 
ed and monarchic Avrath ; come to go doAvn beside 
the beggars in their want, the culprits in their 
chains, the poor in their sorrow, the weak in 
their desolation, and whisper in the ear of each; 
''Arise and stand upon thy feet, for thou also art a 
man." [Hallelujahs.] 



GARLAND OP GRA TITUDE, No. 1. 



At this time, however, the governmental Swells 
of England, had but sneers and bayonets for such 
degenerate rebels, as in these w^estern wilds desired 
to be free. No man of commanding and acknowl- 
edged ability, had as yet been permitted to rise to 
supreme prominence in the New World. And so 
long as the colonists were content to dance attend- 
ance upon the flute of British lords, and submit to 
every measure which would enrich them and im- 
poverish themselves, all was calm. But when the 
colonial patriots arose and protested ; when George 
Washington, Benjamin Franklin, the two Adamses, 
Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson rose 
up to assert natural and Divine rights, then all was 
storm. But when the smoke of battle had cleared 
away from Bunker Hill,Trenton, Charleston, Sarato- 
ga, and the lofty Lord Cornwallis, with his seven 
thousand beleaguered troops, marched out of York- 
town to stack arms and surrender to Mr. George 
Washington (as Lord Howe, refusing him his mili- 
tary title, scornfully had called him); then the sneers 
of royalty were changed to a most deplorable and 
irremediable chagrin, and the ridicule of aristocrats 
to a ridiculous respect, and the prophetic utterance. 

My lords, whatever else you can do, you cannot 
conquer America," of the great Lord Chatham 
was realized. The energy of a Sabbath educated 
people triumphed, filled the world with wonder 
and England with defeat. And well might 



28o GARLAND OP GRA TiTUDE, No. 1. 



the world wonder. Look at the conditions 
of the two opposing powers. Then only a thin 
line of insignificant towns stretched from Maine to 
Georgia ; then, save when crossed by the war- 
whoop of the Indian, unbroken silence reigned 
from ocean to ocean ; the inhabitants of New York 
were confined to the bay and shores of the 
Hudson ; the fertile fields of the Genesee valle}^ 
were held by the savages. 

Schenectady was a frontier hamlet and Albany 
and Kingston villages exposed to Indian incursions. 
Pittsburgh was a mere military post, surrounded 
with woods, swamps and mountains. The fine re- 
gions of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, Indi- 
ana, and all the other westward territories were one 
vast wilderness, untrod by the white man's foot, 
unseen by the white man's eye. Those immense 
realms beyond the Mississippi were tablelands of 
dread, where hordes of savages were believed to 
roam over interminable plains. A disconcerting 
sense of mystery haunted all territories west of the 
AUeghanies. 

Scarce three millions of people, were sparsely 
scattered over a long strip of land, bounded by the 
ocean on the one side, by the wilderness on the 
other. Eight hundred thousand of these were 
New Englanders; eight hundred thousand more 
belonged to the Middle States, and the residue to 
the Southern. 



GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 1. 281 



Virginia surpassed all others in wealth and splen- 
dor. New York and Massachusetts had not as yet 
thought of shining like such aristocracy. The 
roads in all regions were bad, and modern appli- 
ances of travel, agriculture and manufacture im- 
possible. 

Around these nature-besieged colonists raged 
malarial fevers, wild beasts and wilder men. Be- 
fore them lay the dark and trackless woods, behind 
them the raging seas, on every hand the foe. 

Chicago, soon to be the seat of the World's Fair, 
was unborn. St. Louis unstaked out. New York 
town extended only from Castle Garden to City 
Hall. Broadway penetrated no farther than 
Chambers street. Philadelphia was an insignifi- 
cant hamlet clinging to the bank of the Delaware. 
Baltimore and Boston were small towns, and New- 
ark had not 1,000 inhabitants. Passage from one 
town to another was tedious, difficult and danger- 
ous. Such was the material setting of this infant 
Republic, when so fiercely attacked by British 
arms. 

Scan the foe as he approaches, radiant with the 
terrific plumes of a thousand victories, venerable 
in prowess, fierce in diplomacy, warlike in strategy, 
uncompromising and unfaltering in the fray. 
What nation dare stand before him ? The braves 
of Ireland, the heroes of Scotland, the warriors of 
Denmark, had all been reduced to submission by 



282 GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 1, 



his ancient valor. The victorious legions of Spain, 
France and Holland, all had crouched at the feet 
of this imperious and warlike conqueror. Since 
then this great military power, exceeding ancient 
Assyria, Greece or Rome in the efficiency of his 
legions and the vastness of his conquests, has cut 
to pieces on the famous field of Waterloo the 
troops of Napoleon the Great — troops that all but 
overrun the world ; conquered by the sword two 
hundred millions of warlike people in the Orient — 
people of the genuine Aryan stock— and so has 
gone on and strung upon his spear nation after 
nation, till now in every quarter of the globe his 
Avar drums salute the ascending sun. 

What a tremendously dangerous foe was this 
(with his leaders here in possession of the field) for 
an infant Republic, just emerging from its cradle, 
without the sinews and experience of war, to dare 
to repulse. But your patriot fathers did attack in 
his new made lair, this world-conquering lion. Cut 
off his mane, plucked out his teeth, clipped his 
claws, stifled his roar, bayoneted his sides, swept 
him with a simoon of buckshot front, flank and 
rear, and sent him back bleeding, wondering^ 
wounded and dismembered, across the sea, to hide 
within his Angle Isle and lick his gory wounds. 
[Applause.] There never was such a defensive 
victory. 

It was Horatius keeping the bridge — it was 



GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 1. 283 



more ; it was Gideon, with his three hundred lap- 
pers, routing the Midianites — it was more ; it was 
Leonidas, with his three hundred Spartans, guard- 
ing the pass of Thermopylse against the whole 
Persian army — it was more ; it was the victorious 
battle strokes of Sabbath-keeping Christians, who 
cried through a trail of tears and blood, Give us 
liberty or give us death." [Glories.] Aye, it was 
more ; it was the triumphal march of Jehovah in 
His people through the land, crying, " Men of 
England, give place to my people, that ' they may 
dwell here ' in a land which is not ' too strait for 
them.' You have persecuted them in a strait land ; 
now I give them a large land. You have pro- 
scribed them in your own country, and now do I 
sweep this new country clear of you, and give 
them incalculably better than ye have yourselves." 
[Hallelujahs.] 

Thus we see God has given us the glittering 
banner of prosperity, so far as obtaining posses- 
sion is concerned. And so we display this fold of 
our flag to the world, as we adoring cry, Not 
unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name 
give glory." But again, by opening another 
fold, I perceive He has given us the banner of 
physiographic superiority. Three million five 
hundred thousand square miles of territory, ten 
thousand miles of ocean frontage, twenty-four 
thousand miles of river navigation, nine thousand 



284 GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 1. 



miles of island shore line, prairies that for expanse 
and fertility are unequalled on the earth, lakes that 
for size and beauty excel all others on the globe, 
mountains that with granite fingers wring out 
the clouds over the plains, valleys so rich and 
fertile that the surplusage of their productivity 
is being exported to the extent of six millions 
of bushels of wheat in the one week ending August 
22, 1 89 1, oil wells that produce one hundred and 
thirty thousand barrels a day, forests that turn 
out lumber which I found docked on the Para- 
matta river in Australia nine thousand miles away; 
black shale regions containing enough of oil to 
cover Pennsylvania and New York States, with an 
ocean of illuminating liquid fifteen feet deep ; 
floral belts that (as in Texas) lift up their golden, 
scarlet, violet hues laughing to the sun ; fruits of 
every species, vegetable of every genus, cereals of 
every shade, flocks of every variety and herds 
almost numberless, climate of every temperature — 
thus, laden with a richness of blessing, with an 
affluence of capacity, that could feed and clothe 
the population of the whole earth, does the land 
lie before us, pillowing its cool and quiet head 
amid the crystal palaces of the north, and stretch- 
ing through thirty degrees of latitude, bathing its 
emerald feet in the balmy waters of the south. 
Truly God has given us, the banner of physio- 
graphic grandeur, and therefore we gratefully 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUBE, No. 1. 



285 



weave it into our garland of praise and cry, " Not 
unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name 
give glory." 

I open another fold of this great standard of 
prosperity, " to be displayed because of the 
truth," and I find furthermore He has given us 
the banner of agricultural prosperity. Every 
nation on the earth in this regard is now left 
far behind us. To such an extent has agricul- 
ture grown that as early as 1870, the value of the 
farm implements alone was $337,000,000, and the 
value of the live stock was $1,500,000,000, and the 
cash value of farms, implements and stock was 
over $11,000,000,000, and the annual production 
was in value $2,448,000,000. The number of farms 
was 2,600,000, the number of farmers and helpers 
6,000,000, and so large and lavish were some of 
these farms that 2,000 of them produced $50,000,000 
worth in one year. And such was the increase 
that during the decade between 1870 and 1880 the 
number of farms increased to 4,000,000, the num- 
ber of farmers and helpers to 7,670,000, and the 
worth of farms only, to $10,000,000,000. 

But in no decade, either in this or any other 
country under the sun, has there ever been such 
materialistic progress as in this land from 1880 to 
1890. It is utterly unparalleled in all history. I 
have received and am receiving through the cour- 
tesy of Gen. Robert P. Porter, Superintendent of 



286 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 1. 



United States Census, every bulletin that comes 
out, before finally forming the national volumes 
which will be published, of the state of the coun- 
try, and from these I gather that such has been the 
marvelous growth during the ten years ending 
with 1890, that the absolute wealth of this country 
now has risen to the almost unthinkable sum of 
$62,610,000,000, or about $1,000 for every man, 
woman and child in the land. 

And this enormous wealth, all in one way or 
another, has come forth from the soil. Most from 
the surface, but much from the bosom. 

Since 1770, when the wondering hunter picked 
up a swarthy diamond, and carried it to his hut 
amid the mountains of Mauch Chunk, there have 
been over $13,000,000,000 worth of merchantable 
coal, quarried from these beds of anthracite. And 
the bituminous coal beds are even more extensive 
than the anthracitic. The great Appalachain ranges 
contain inexhaustible supplies. The State of Mich 
igan contains 6,700 square miles of it, and Illinois 
47,000 square miles more. The iron, too, packs the 
mountains. The gold, the silver, the copper, the 
lead, rib the hills. 

Our barren and rocky wilds seem set on founda- 
tions of wealth, and our fertile valleys cover illim- 
itable beds of jewels. Such is the wealth in the 
soil and on the soil that if the whole earth were to 
form a conspiracy to boycott America you could, 



GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 1. 287 



with the utmost indifference, play ''Yankee Doodle 
Dandy," and go grandly marching on. [Applause.] 

This, through Sabbath-keeping cooperation, God 
has done for us. Therefore, this also I reverently 
weave into his chaplet of praise, and coming forth 
I devoutly lay it at His feet saying, '' Not unto us, 
O Lord ; not unto us, but unto Thy name give 
glory." But I open another fold of this great, 
glittering standard He '' has given us to be dis- 
played because of the truth," and discover the 
banner of financial prosperity. For in this, too, 
we lead the world, not, however, without a great, 
protracted struggle. 

The common currency of the early colonists con- 
sisted of beads made of clam shells, known as wam- 
pum. These they used in dealing with the Indians. 
This was abolished as a nuisance in 1650. Ten 
years after the Revolution the first bank was pro- 
posed in Massachusetts. The country swam 
through the British war on $140,000,000 bills of 
credit. There was then no national mintage. Jan- 
uary 15, 1782, Robert Morris, the noble financier 
of the Revolution, proposed a coinage, and the 
much appreciated dollar was adopted as a basis. 

This worked well up till 1843, when the paper 
money complaint broke out in Ohio, Illinois and 
Indiana. This bank script was called by various 
rude names, as white-dog, blue-pup, according to 
the purposes for which it was devoted. But the 



288 GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 1. 



" rag-baby," as it since has been called, has been 
of great service, especially during the Civil War. 

When the South seceded in i860 our debt was 
about $90,000,000, and had it not been for this same 
baby secession could hardly have been prevented. 
At the beginning of the war, sufficient gold and 
silver not being procurable, $10,000,000 treasury 
notes were authorized. February 8, 1861, $10,- 
000,000 more, and as necessities arose by the terri- 
ble and unexpected drainage of the war, govern- 
ment bonds, bank notes and legal tenders were 
issued till, in January, 1875, you were $2,242,- 
301,082.43 in debt, and during July, 1864, so much 
was the nation's credit strained that it required 
$2.85 to procure a $1.00 in gold. 

But this over two billions and a quarter, I am 
happy to say, is being paid off as soon as it 
comes due. Over one billion has been paid 
during the last decade. We are now considerably 
below a billion in debt. The foreign nations are 
twenty-five billions in debt, and two billions of this 
have been contracted during the last ten years. 
Thus it is evident that while Sabbath-desecrating 
nations are falling into embarrassment, we, a 
Sabbath-keeping nation, are emerging from em- 
barrassments. 

The French Cession was secured in 1803 from 
Napoleon for the small sum of fifteen millions. 
It is now worth more than that number of bil- 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 1. 



289 



lions. The Texan annexation was ratified in 1845, 
which gave us territory large enough for a new 
empire. Alaska was purchased April 10, 1867, 
and since then the eleventh census states that seal- 
skins to the value of $33,000,000, and other furs to 
the value of $16,000,000, have been sold in the 
London market. Owing to these successes, there 
is no part of the civil world where at this moment 
an American dollar, whether in paper or metal, 
will not bring its full value in gold ; for you have 
taught the nations, the detestable character of 
repudiation, by your unflinching honor in assuming 
and paying, the very last dime of your obligation. 
Your financial basis is as solid now as the gold- 
packed mountains which look out on your Golden 
Gate, and it is known all over this earth that, as 
sure as thirty-six inches make a yard, so one hun- 
dred cents make an American dollar. As a travel- 
er, I have been charmed with the recognition of 
this fact in many parts of the earth. There is 
nothing of a secular sort, does a man more good 
when abroad, than to feel that he is trusted for the 
sake of his country. This, too, hath God wrought 
through the agency of a Sabbath-keeping people ; 
therefore I weave this golden strand into the gar- 
land of gratitude we owe, and with you, casting 
it at His feet, adoringly exclaim, " Not unto us, 
O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give 
glory." But I open another fold of the great 



290 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 1. 



standard to be displayed, because of the truth," 
and I discover, furthermore, He has given unto 
us the banner of scientific prosperity in the 
practical and mechanical arts. There is no 
nation that ever has begun to compare with the 
American nation in inventive and applied genius, 
in the mechanical arts and sciences. Other nations, 
from old Egypt up, have been making things to 
stay — pyramids to sit and moulder," statues to lean 
on pediments, pictures to hang on walls. But the 
genius of Americans is applied to making things 
to go. To my mind, in this vast distinction, there 
are a promise and a prophecy. The mandate of 
the Master was Go." Scientifically, we have 
been obeying, and in this obedience there is a 
preparation for something soon to follow. The 
best place to study the mechanical ''go" of our 
people, however, is in the Patent Ofhce in our 
National capital. 

There you can see the 250,000 inventions which 
have been flowing from American minds. Ma- 
chines for almost everything under the sun. Ma- 
chines for ploughing, and drilling, and grubbing, 
and sowing, and reaping, and winnowing, and 
grinding. Machines for cultivating wheat, corn, 
rye, oats, barley, hops, cotton, cocoons, hay, sugar, 
molasses, potatoes, beans, peas and honey. Ma- 
chines for the management of horses, oxen, pigs, 
sheep, goats, boys, girls, men, women and mos- 



GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 1. 29 1 

quitoes. Machines for manufacturing cloth, flax, 
hemp, jute, boots, brick tile, clothes, hosiery, 
rubber, iron steel, nails, tacks, prints, salt, tar and . 
turpentine. Machines for diving into the deep and 
scanning the submarine regions of mystery, and the 
subterranean realms of dread. Machines for pene- 
trating the azure depths of the celestial worlds and 
descrying their order, number, distance, size and 
speed. Machines for sweeping through the conti- 
nent with wheels of thunder and banners of 
flame," in a capital stock of ten billion, and on a 
mileage that is creeping up toward 200,000 at the 
rate of 6,000 miles a year. Machines for capturing 
and controlling one of the greatest invisible forces 
of nature, discovered by our own Benjamin Frank- 
lin, and trained to do message service by our own 
Samuel B. F. Morse, and set by the energy of Amer- 
ican genius, to silently carrying annually 50,000,- 
000 messages over 300,000 miles of line, and 
weaving the world into one great brotherhood of 
commerce. Telephonic machines breaking down 
both space and time, and uniting by their net- work 
our great cities into one grand bourse of business. 
Electric light machines, brought to the birth by the 
splendor, of the inimitable genius, of our own 
Wizard of Menlo Park — blazing with a light be- 
fore whose brilliancy and beauty, the golden stars 
themselves grow dim. So numerous and so mighty 
are these industrial machines, that with them we 



292 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE^ No. 1, 



can accomplish more work, in this land than could 
all the world two hundred years ago. This, too, 
» hath God wrought," through a Sabbath-sanctify- 
ing people, and as I take these ever-active, ever- 
advancing, mechanical labor-saving powers, and 
work them into that garland of gratitude we all 
owe the Almighty, and as we adoringly lay it at 
the foot of His throne ; let us together exclaim, 
" Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy 
name give glory." [Amens.] 



Garland of Gratitude —No. 2. 



For the Prosperity of this Land Under 
Sabbath Ministries. 

Psa. Ix, 4. — "Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee, 
that it may be displayed because of the truth." 

Psa. cxv, I. — "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy 
name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake." 

IN our first study of our banner of national pros- 
perity we discovered physiographic, agricultur- 
al, financial and scientific supremacies. In looking at 
it again I discover unequalled educational, humani- 
tarian, heraldic and religious prosperities. 'Tis 
flags within The Flag. So, then, in opening another 
fold of the great, ghttering standard God has given 
us, I find the banner of educational supremacy. 

The time was, even in this land, when universal 
education was looked upon by many with leerful 
scorn. Thank God those times arc forever past, 
for universal education is not only the grand fos- 
tering parent, of our advancement in the mechani- 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 2. 



cal arts and sciences, but is also the palladium of 
our civil, social and religious liberties. 

It Avas Numa in Plutarch said, the fair fabric of 
freedom passed away because it was not founded 
on education ;" it was Zaleucus, Pythagoras, Plato 
and Aristotle who vainly tried to teach this blinded 
world, that education was the only custodian of 
civil liberty ; it was the filibustering feudalities 
who, in their imperious pride, denounced the gen- 
eral education of the people ; it was the dignitaries 
of Rome, who seconded them in their diabolical 
denunciations. The poor world groped and 
groaned on in darkness, beneath the lash of its 
pitiless tyrants, without knowing the source of its 
weakness, poverty and sorrow. But when Wash- 
ington the great, and Jefferson the good, and 
Adams the brave, rose up in the initial stages of 
the integration of this Republic, and declared with 
earnestness that an ignorant people could not be 
free ; when in later days Jedediah Peck, Adam 
Comstock and DeWitt Clinton reiterated and re- 
emphasized the educational principles of the patriot 
fathers ; when these never-to-be-forgotten gentle- 
men took hold with manly hand of the public 
schools, and lifted them up out of their obscurity 
and obloquy, and placed them in the very front 
rank of our institutions and practically said, Now 
let education become free as the light of heaven ; 
let her go forth untrammeled into every county 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 



295 



and State of this Union ; let her soften, soothe and 
sharpen the rising race of this Republic from 
ocean to ocean ; let her re-cast the savage youth 
who would grow up into desperadoes and outlaws, 
and remold them into pleasing and profitable fac- 
tors of society. Then our statesmen generally 
began to see that what they would have come out 
in the state, they must first put into the schools. 
And so all the States have come into line, old 
Massachusetts, who never yet failed in a vital 
measure, leading the way. Such has been the 
progress, that far-off Illinois, according to the 
eleventh census, is now abreast of Massachusetts. 
And such has been the rectification of public senti- 
timent, that the public schools are no longer looked 
upon as only fit for pauper pupils and charity 
scholars. They are looked upon now as the bul- 
warks of the State, of which every intelligent 
patriot is proud. There are, however, objectors 
still. But when you meet them say, Hands off the 
poor man's child ! He is our child because he was 
born in our country and could not help being so 
born, and we mean that he shall have as fair an 
opportunity, to equip himself for, citizenship as it 
is possible for the state to give him. Say hands 
off to every aristocratic and exclusive scuttler, who 
would selfishly keep the children of the poor and 
unfortunate, in ignorance and obloquy that they 
may govern them. Educate the poor, inspire the 



296 GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 2. 



unfortunate, and they will govern equitably them- 
selves. Experience proves the equity of this prin- 
ciple. As the schools increase, crimes diminish ; 
as the schools flourish, pauperism hides its head in 
shame. Three-fourths of the paupers and prisoners 
of this Republic, are of those who have not been 
brought up in our public schools. And as I look 
over the entire field, at the 68,000,000 acres of land 
granted, at the $82,500,000 of regular income, at 
the 225,000 schools, at the 236,000 teachers, at the 
$96,000,000 annually expended, at $211,000,000 
worth of school property —figures which have 
been greatly increased during the past decade, but 
whose increase I cannot furnish because the bulle- 
tins are not all published — as I survey these educa- 
tional expenditures, I say that in no department of 
either State or National government, did this 
country ever invest capital, which has brought and 
will bring so immense returns, as that invested in 
our public school system. We have yet almost 
five million of people over ten years of age who 
cannot read, and over six millions who cannot 
write. This should not so be under a paternal 
government like ours. Go on, then, great Instruct- 
ress of the people, go. Woe be to the man Avho 
would bind thy wings ; woe w^aits the man who 
would embarrass thy march, through poorer doles 
dealt out to faithful teachers. Shall the officers of 
the navy roll in luxury, and our hard toiling 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. S, 



teachers groan in grinding poverty ? Perish the 
thought ! Away with the dull eyes, sunken cheek, 
anxious, haggard, care-worn looks, of these under- 
paid pioneers of learning. Let them be better fed, 
better clad, better supplied with books and appa- 
ratuses of experiment, and the reflex influence on 
the schools, and on the land will repay in plenty 
this added liberality. 

There are sections, as Wyoming and Dakota, 
into which populations are pouring at a ratio of 
200—300 per cent, increase each decade, and there 
the educational banner is floating high. But there 
comes a flood of immigrants, who settle in the 
large cities along these Eastern shores ; and I, for 
one, say, let them come. Let them come, from the 
Isle that hangs bleeding and crying at the belt of 
Britain ; let them come, from the historic, priest- 
belabored land of Italy ; let them come, from the 
easy-going, beer-bibbing land of Germany. Aye, let 
the almond-eyed Oriental come. Let all come. But 
let all be taught, when they come, the majesty of 
American law, the sacredness of American institu- 
tions, and let their children be most thoroughly 
transformed into Americans, through the pubHc 
school system. Thus will the body politic assimi- 
late to itself what the public schools put into the 
national hopper, and men will no longer feel that 
they can come here and de-Americanize this nation. 
The movement, in the minds of many of our states- 



298 GARLAl^D OF GRA TITUDE, No. 2. 

men, to curtail emigration, is neither wise diplo- 
macy nor good humanity. It has reacted, and will 
react bitterly upon us. The suppression of Chi- 
nese emigration, to please a few demagogues like 
Dennis Kearny, has done more to alienate the 
Chinese nation from us than any measure that 
has ever passed Congress. We can afford to take 
care of the world's poor. It is by taking care of 
the world's poor that we have become richer than 
the world. Singular, statesmen cannot see this. 
Surely we have proved the imperishable truth of 
the words of the Lord Jesus, Give and it shall be 
given you, good m.easure, pressed down, shaken 
together and running over, shall men give into 
your bosoms." Thus, then, let the Old World's 
poor come. The fact of their coming demonstrates 
they mean to do better. But let every one of their 
children (for we cannot do much with the old folks, 
and a few years will end them) be brought up to 
understand, and to obey the constitutional genius 
of this commonwealth, through the agency of our 
public schools. O ! school commissioners, in this 
and every city, hear these words and heed this 
counsel. There is only one feature of our American 
school life, that I survey with serious alarm, and 
that is the stand that the administrators of the 
Roman Catholic Church, have taken in regard to 
the education of their youth. They refuse to 
receive our public school education on the plea 



GARLAUD op GRA TITUDM, No. S. 



that it is a Godless education and, paradoxical 
though it seem, these were the men who clamored 
for the expulsion, from the schools of the only Book 
that presents, an authoritative revelation of God to 
mankind. And so the blessed Bible, upon which 
this Republic is built, was in many instances 
expelled to please the adherents, of an ecclesiastical 
system, which history proves to be the subverter 
of nations. Well, even that would not work. They 
insisted on having the education of their own 
children, and disclaimed all paternity the State 
assumed, in regard to their educational welfare. 
They now are building parochial schools all over 
this land, and propose sectarian education only for 
their children. I look upon the coming results of 
this with anxiety. It cuts off one-tenth of the 
youth of this country from the other nine-tenths, 
and educates them as aliens, in sympathy with a 
foreign system, which assumes absolute authority 
over men, body and soul. There can no good 
come out of this scholastic schism. I apprehend 
much evil. Nevertheless, our duty is plain. God 
has given us the educational banner of the world. 
Our duty is to hold it high, and make it float over 
every palace and hamlet, and hut, in this realm till 
all the people are cultivated, and having done our 
best, still humbly say in our hearts, Not unto us, 
O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give 
glory." 



30O 



GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. ^. 



By opening another fold in our great, growing, 
national standard, I discern, furthermore, that God 
has given us the banner of supremacy in humani- 
tarianism, to be displayed because of the truth." 
Inhumanity has been one of the haggard and 
horrid features of human history. The cruelty of 
man to man ; the rancoui:; of clan against clan ; 
the rapacity of tribe to tribe ; the hostility of 
nation against nation ; the slogan call to arms ; 
the trumpets summoning to war; the enlisting of 
powerful armies ; the drilling them for the field ; 
the leading them to the fray ; the fierce onset of 
mighty battalions on the battle plain ; the crash 
and gash and gore of encrimsoned butchery ; 
the groans of the dying ; the shouts of the cap- 
tains ; the cries of the vanquished ; the yells 
of the victors ; the rush of retreat ; the storm of 
pursuit ; the enslavement of captives ; the looting 
and occupation of the territory — these, alas ! 
are the leading features of secular history. Chief 
against chief ; king against king ; Avars and 
rumors of wars, have, up to a recent date, 
monopolized the time, talent and resources of 
mankind, the object of the whole being that 
the one might subdue and tyrannize over the 
other. But these shocking barbarities and this 
fiendish ambition, have never had for any great 
length of time the ascendancy in this Repub- 
lic. The Revolutionary war was undertaken to 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 2. 



defend ourselves against just such barbarous impo- 
sitions on the land ; the War of 1812 was waged to 
defend ourselves against the impressment of our 
sailors on the sea ; the Mexican war was under- 
taken to defend ourselves against incursions of the 
Mexicans on our southwestern border ; the civil 
war was undertaken to prevent the westward 
spread of slavery. Thus it will be seen that there 
was a legitimate cause for every war we have yet 
waged, and every one of them has proved emi- 
nently successful. But still, humanitarianism had 
not gone very far when this nation was founded. 
For years after the Declaration of Independence, 
culprits were treated with much inhumanity. 
Prisons had no reformatory tendency ; in many 
cases they created greater vagabonds. The inno- 
cent were thrown in with the guilty ; youthful 
offenders with hoary scoundrels ; women, too, with 
men. Disease, crime and demonry were the pro- 
ducts. Ten crimes were punishable with death, 
even in glorious Massachusetts. In Kentucky, 
twenty-seven offences were followed with death or 
maiming. In those days, perjury, obtaining money 
under false pretences, horse stealing, writ stealing, 
breaking a jail, stabbing, etc., were punished un- 
hesitatingly as capital crimes, probably because all 
such crimes were similarly visited in the Old 
World. But in 1822, Edward Livingston, the 
American Howard, rose and cried down and out 
14 



302 



GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 2. 



such inhuman barbarities ; so that, now, only 
murder in the first degree is punishable with the 
loss of life. Prisoners, too, are classified ; criminal 
children sent to the house of refuge or school- 
ship ; chaplains appointed to instruct and reform 
the erring. The prisons are becoming reformator- 
ies instead of deformatories, places of sympathy 
and prayer instead of slaughter-houses, and the 
last report of the prison of Massachusetts demon- 
strates that 85 per cent, of criminals who come 
under this new and humane treatment slough off 
the old rags of rascality and put on the new gar- 
ments of manhood. Similar reports come from 
New York. 

The national census bulletins for 1890 say the 
total number of prisoners in county jails through- 
out the land June i, 1890, were 19,538. The num- 
ber reported in 1880 was 12,691, an increase in ten 
years of 6,847, the rate of almost 54 per cent. 

The increase in population was not quite 25 per 
cent. In 1880 the ratio of prisoners in county jails 
to the population was 253 in each miUion ; in 1890 
it was 312. The increase, therefore, has been 59 to 
the million. The largest increase has been in the 
North Atlantic division, where it was 95 to the 
million. 

These figures prove that crime is on the increase 
only where Sabbath breaking is on the increase. 
Other statistics prove that crime is on the decrease 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 2. 



where Sabbath keeping is on the increase, demon- 
strating the humanizing influence of Sabbath keep- 
ing and the demoralizing power of Sabbath break- 
ing. In Sabbathless lands prisoners are treated 
with the most shocking barbarity. I have seen in 
Canton, China, a prisoner tied up by the thumbs 
and great toes, so that the weight of his whole 
body came on these four small members. I have 
seen another, before the eyes of the Mandarin, 
flagellated till the blood flowed in streams and the 
poor creature could scarce crawl away, and this 
w^as only his "first dish," as they call it. 1 found 
torture inflicted upon criminals and witnesses. 
Here are some of the modes : Striking the lips 
with sticks till they are jellied ; nailing criminals to 
boards by malleting spikes through the palms; 
thrusting their head through the Cangue ; throw^- 
ing them on beds of spiked iron ; using boiling 
water and red hot spikes, and cutting the tendon 
Achilles ; compelling them to kneel on pounded 
glass, sand and salt mixed together, till the knees 
grow excoriated ; ending up with an hundred 
blows with the bamboo. The quivering lips, the 
pallid face, the shuddering frame, all proclaim 
the agonies of these poor creatures. 

Such is the inhumanity of the greatest Sabbath- 
less land on earth. How different the humane 
treatment in this Sabbatic land. No torture per- 
mitted on prisoners except that of confinement. 



304 



GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, Mo. 2. 



Books, papers, chaplains, church, admission of 
friends and advisers, and every other element that 
can reform and renew the culprit and send him 
forth a new man. These, of course, are privileges 
of recent prison life, but they have come to stay 
and grow, until our prisons, shall assume rather the 
function of renovators than inquisitorial and mur- 
derous Bastiles. 

Anaesthesia, too, has been born in this land. 
Before her birth the sufferer had to endure, the 
lacerations of surgery and tortures of dentistry 
with no alleviation. But since the demonstration 
in Boston, in 1846, of the harmlessness of inhaled 
ether, millions have been relieved of their suffer- 
ings and the sources thereof, without passing 
through the old time pangs. The thanks of the 
world are due such men as Horace Wells, of Hart- 
ford, and Morton, of Boston, who by their experi- 
ments have shown humanity how to shun the ab- 
normities of disease and enormities of pain. 

Nor has the spirit of humanity forgotten the 
jeopardized seamen on our coasts. All along the 
Atlantic and other dangerous shores life-saving 
centers have been established. Fitting men and ap- 
paratuses, such as the car and breeches buoy, are 
appointed to deliver seamen in distress, and so suc- 
cessful have these surfmen been in rescuing im- 
periled lives, that out of 1,989 endangered seamen 
1,980 were saved in a single year. 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUBE, No. 2. 



I need not mention the 6,000,000 slaves recently 
emancipated, nor stop to portray our homes for 
the friendless, foster homes, asylums, reformatories, 
houses of refug-e, relief bureaus. Nor need I wait 
to paint the munificent responsiveness, of our peo- 
ple in the presence of any great calamity, such as 
the Chicago fire or the Johnstown flood. The mem- 
ories of these are fresh in our minds. 1 have trav- 
eled and investigated patiently in twenty-three of 
the leading nations of the earth, and I have no hesi- 
tation in announcing that for sympathy in sorrow, 
for helpfulness in distress, for a humanity that is 
prompt, practical and abundant, America easily 
leads the world ; and furthermore, I have no hesi- 
tation in declaring that this fairest of all the hu- 
manities has flowed from the love of Him who 
went about healing the deaf, dumb, blind, halt, 
withered, palsied, leprous and demonic, and finally 
suffered His loving hands and feet to be nailed to 
the bitter tree for our advantage. [Praises be to 
God.] 

Thus, then, hath God given us the banner of 
humanitarianism "to be displayed because of the 
truth," and as we gather up all these expanding 
charities in our hearts, we bring them adoringly 
to the foot of His throne and humbly exclaim : 
" Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy 
name give glory." [Hallelujahs and amens.] 

Again, by looking for another flag folded in 



3o6 GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 2. 



this great standard, I discover our heraldic em- 
blem which God has given us with a star for 
every State and a State for every star," ''to be 
displayed because of the truth." All nations 
have their symbolic standards — China her couch- 
ant dragon, Japan its rising sun, England her 
rampant lion, Russia her volant eagle, Turkey her 
crescent, etc. But of all the national ensigns, for 
significance of symbology, we prefer the flag of 
the United States. Those red stripes symbolize 
sacrifice, a law which is as universal as space and 
time ; those white stripes symbolize purity, an 
excellence which is primal in every noble char- 
acter ; that ground of blue symbolizes liberty, an 
exhilarating, exalted possession, which flows from 
sacrifice and purity; those stars symbolize light, an 
essential essence emanating from the introduction 
of the other three in human character. But our 
flag is not only intrinsically significant ; but it is 
extrinsically powerful. 

Joel R. Poinsett was United States Minister to 
Mexico. The election of Pedraza as President was 
distasteful to many Mexican people. The mob 
rushed to arms, took possession of the Accordata, 
and thence rushed out upon the government troops 
that were posted in steeples, convents and churches. 
Building after building was demolished, massacre 
after massacre committed, when, at length, the 
excited murderers came to the house of our Min- 



■GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 2. 



ister, who had in his humanity admitted refugees. 
A shot was at once fired through his cloak, and the 
wild insurgents cried, " Fire into the windows ; 
burn the building ; bring up the cannon." In the 
height of this furious infatuation, Mr. Poinsett 
marched out on his balcony, wrapped in our fiag, 
defiantly shouting to the sea of savages, " Fire 
on that if you dare!!" Instantly every musket 
was unleveled, every threatening voice hushed, 
and the assassins slunk away as if they had sud- 
denly been confronted with an exploding Vesuvius. 
And if the united savagery of the world were to 
besiege these shores, crying, Disrupt the Union, 
abolish the commonwealth ; a proper exhibition of 
the same grand flag, with all it represents, would 
blaze out with the splendor of Jehovistic victory. 
I believe God is as much with our national banner 
now as he was with the Ark of Israel, the talismanic 
ensign of His chosen people ; and from observation 
in many realms, I am convinced there is no pennon 
that floats from masthead, no standard that streams 
from flagstaff, that commands the reverence and 
awe which the flag of our country inspires. It 
represents a genuis for man-building as well as for 
man-ruling. This genius enabled the second son 
of Ebenezer Webster, a small New Hampshire 
farmer, to rise gracefully from poverty and obscur- 
ity to be the first orator, the foremost jurist, and the 
leading statesman of his day. This genius led 



3o8 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 



forth from the solitudes of the woods, the young- 
Kentucky rail-splitter, and taught him first to be a 
soldier, then a grocer, then a surveyor, then a 
lawyer, then a legislator, then President of this 
Republic, liberator of Cis-Atlantic Africa, conser- 
vator of this Union and martyr for his country. 
This genius led by the hand the child of impecun- 
ious Jesse Grant, the Georgetown tanner, up from 
the swill of the tan vats, to and through West 
Point, through the Mexican war, the civil war, 
whence he came forth Commander-in-Chief of one 
of earth's mightiest armies, the conqueror of a for- 
midable Rebellion, the rebuilder of this Common- 
wealth, the President twice of this Confederation of 
nations he had saved, the silent sufferer and the 
military ideal of an admiring and benefited world. 
This genius which this banner of our country 
represents, not only overawes insurgents without 
and integrates giants within, but creates admiration 
around, extending possibly to the other life. If we 
could summon from the shades, Washington the 
great and the good, what entrancing pictures that 
have grown up under this Sabbatic flag might we 
present before his appreciative gaze ? I seem to 
see his venerable form slowly rise from its long- 
repose on the lovely slopes of the Potomac. A 
certain complaisant sweetness casts a radiant glow 
over his firmly fashioned features, as he contrasts 
the condition of this country now with what it w\ts 



GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 2. 



when he left it on that cold December morning of 
1799. As he ascends some mount of all-embracing- 
vision and looks out upon our fruitful farms ; as he 
descends into the underground treasuries and be- 
holds our well- worked mines ; as he emerges to 
our trade department and investigates our world- 
commanding system of commerce and finance ; as 
he looks into our immense works of practical arts 
and applied sciences, lifting the land to unheard-of 
splendor; as he criticall}^ surveys our educational 
system, making education free as the light of 
heaven, from ocean to ecean, and elevating the 
young to intelligent citizenship; as he pauses 
before our humanitarian institutions, studding with 
stars of love the whole body of the land for relief 
of the belated and benighted. And then, as he casts 
his military eye over our history ; as he spies 
Andrew Jackson's troops drive back, once and for- 
ever, his old-time enemy (the rattling, rollicking, 
appropriating, attitudinizing Johnny Bull, who 
never misses a chance of being under the branches 
when the tree of nations is shaken, to pick up 
his swell share of the fruit) from behind the cot- 
ton bales in New Orleans; as he reviews the 
grandeur of our troops in the subsequent Mex- 
ican war, on the heights of Alto, on the plains of 
Palma, amid the smoke of Vista, and coming off 
more than conquerors through the rush and roar 
of Contreras and Monterey ; and, as coming down 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 2. 



to later times, he scans with his fine sense of 
martial frenzy the fort3'-five battles of the civil 
war, till freedom for the slave and solidarity to the 
Union were forged with a skill, courage and per- 
sistence that never have been surpassed ; and then, 
finally, as he turns and surve3^s the resumption of 
unparalleled peace and prosperity at home, and the 
unequalled credit and eclat abroad, would not our 
venerable founder forget his accustomed calmness, 
and rushing rapt in a flame of patriotic admiration, 
grasp that flag as the symbol of our powerful 
privileges, and in the fine poetic strain of Francis 
Scott Key, exclaim : 

" 'Tis the star-spangled banner ! Oh long may it wave, 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave." 

And would not these over sixty-two millions of 
ever-increasing Americans respond, with a reson- 
ance that might shake the world : 

" Forever float that standard sheet, 
As valia7it sons rise up before ns. 
With freedom's soil beneath our feet, 

And freedom's banner streaming o'er us." 

And then, together addressing that Supreme 
Being before whom W ashington himself often 
prayed, and who delivered him out of all his sore 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. S 



distresses, we would together say, Thou hast 
given this banner of great secular prosperity to 
them that fear Thee, to be displayed because of the 
truth." We will display it, therefore, neverthe- 
less. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto 
thy name give glory, for Thy mercy and truth's 
sake." [Amens and hallelujahs.] But I unfold 
again this great substantial standard of our nation, 
because I finally discover another banner within its 
pattern — the banner of religious prosperity. This 
is the most important of all. Indeed, to it all the 
others owe their unexampled development. The 
prosperity of this nation, under the sway of the 
Lord of the Sabbath is a fulfillment of many 
prophecies. Take but one — in Deut. xxviii, 1-13, 
of which this new Israel is a literal fulfillment in 
every respect : 

" And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently 
unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all His 
commandments which I command thee this day : that the Lord 
thy God will set thee on high above the nations of the earth : 

"And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake 
thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. 

" Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be 
in the field. 

" Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy 
ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and 
the flocks of thy sheep. 

" Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. 

" Blessed shalt thou he when thou comest in, and blessed 
shalt thou be when thou goest out. 



312 GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 2. 

" The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee 
to be smitten before thy face : they shall come out against thee 
one way, and fiee before thee seven ways. 

" The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy store- 
houses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto: and He shall 
bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 

" The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto Himself, as 
He hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments 
of the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways. 

"And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by 
the name of the Lord ; and they shall be afraid of thee. 

" And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit 
of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy 
ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to 
give thee. 

" The Lord shall open unto thee His good treasure, the heaven 
to give the rain unto thy land in His season, and to bless all the 
work of thine hand : and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and 
thou shalt not borrow. 

" And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail: 
and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath ; if 
that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, 
which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them.'' 

These are blessings that have come to us through 
obedience. Those interested in seeing the terrible 
curses awaiting disobedience can do so by reading 
the rest of the chapter, as I am not on that side of 
the subject to-night. These blessings were just so 
far given to old Israel as it obeyed the Lord. 

These blessings have been conferred upon, and 
shall be continued to us, in exact ratio as we are sub- 
missive to the Giver. The lapse of time has not 
altered the Divine method of moral government 



GARLAND OF GRATITTDE, No. 2. 313 

one millionth part of an hair's breadth. The great 
men and nations of the past, and of the present are 
but the volitional chariot, on which Jehovah rides, 
and all who will not be obedient to the Divine pro- 
cession upwards are swept, and must forever be 
swept, into utter desolation downward. They be- 
come the flying drift from the wheels of Jehovah's 
train, flung out of the way to make it easier and 
safer for the next procession that comes on^ 
God is in this world and those of you who are 
making your reckoning, without reference to Him 
are making it without reference, to the only Being 
on whom you are utterly dependent. This would 
not be good business policy. How can it be good 
religious diplomacy ? For the most part our peo 
pie early caught hold of this great idea of utter 
dependence on God. They seem to have said 
practically, We will do our best, O Lord, now do 
Thou thy best with what we do." Hence there 
has been a marvelous progression, in the very 
nature of rehgion itself in this land. 

Before the Declaration of Independence religious 
toleration was unknown among even the colonists. 
They had an idea that to be intolerant was to be 
religious. Hence Congregationalists persecuted 
Episcopalians, Episcopalians persecuted Puritans, 
Roman Catholics persecuted Quakers, and Quakers 
proscribed Roman Catholics, whilst Stuyvesant 
sent religious cranks in chains to Holland. Before 



314 



GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 



the Revolutionar}^ war these five sections — New 
England, New York, Virginia, Maryland and Penn- 
sylvania — were bitterly intolerant of each other in 
religious matters, and dissenters from either by 
each were deemed worthy of death. If our ro}^- 
stering ''Robert" had ranted in those days as in 
these, he Avould have been hung from the first limb 
of the nearest tree. But now men more tolerantly 
say, if " any man be such an avaricious lunatic 
as to close his eyes, and go forth crying up 
and down the world to scoffers for fifty cents a 
head, that there is no sun ; we simply continue our 
way in the full splendor of his blessed beams, bal- 
ancing in our minds, which exhibited the greatest 
folly, the speaker, or the pitiable creatures who lost 
their time, money and hope by listening to him. 

This spirit of toleration began with this Repub- 
lic. It was unknown in any part of Europe till 
after it had spread from hence. Religious rancour 
ran riot through every land. Many of the people 
who joined the churches seemed "tenfold more the 
children of the devil" than before. But after the 
Declaration of Independence New England, as 
usual in every advance, set the example and be- 
came willing to give other people a right to think. 
All the other sections followed suit and abolished 
religious oligarchy and adopted religious equality, 
at least in theor}^ But it was hard to break up 
the petrified incinerations of ages, and it was not 



GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 2. 31^ 

really till the Methodist itinerant appeared, hover- 
ing over every frontier, distributing chapters of 
charity from his saddle-bags and volumes of love 
from his sermons, that the whole Republic was 
smelted into one great sisterhood of amicable 
States, where a man was only valued for what his 
life weighed, and his opinions were only regarded 
in proportion as they produced good fruit. And 
so it has come to pass that no man is considered 
any the less valuable, on account of his religious 
shibboleths, provided his life is a well rounded re- 
production of our Lord's. 

This great growth is bringing the pilgrims to- 
gether. Congregationalists, Baptists, Presbyter- 
ians, Episcopalians, and even Roman Catholics, 
have all found out that in order to be good Chris- 
tians they must be good Meth-od-ists in reality if 
not in name, for all good beings go by method. 
The bad alone are methodless. In this way all 
the denominations fall in love with the name 
Methodist, and the only trouble with the Metho- 
dist is that he can jump, out and into another fold 
as easily, as a young colt can clear a fence on a 
June morning, because he fancies there is better 
pasture or more privilege on the other side. They 
are generally glad enough to jump back, however. 
There are some things that need mending with us. 
We need to stop our flight from down town 
churches, by which a monumental beauty as St, 



3i6 



GARLAND OF GRA TITUDE, No. 2. 



Paul's, New York, is sold and the fortress that 
should have detonated with living truth, till this 
world's end, to crowded congregations, is given up. 

We need to reform our inequitable methods of 
administration, by which a church, because it is 
strong and rich, secures its choice of pastor, whilst 
a church which is weak and poor is refused its 
preference. If it is right for the former to have its 
choice, it is right for the latter, and there ought to 
be no respect of churches in this matter. I think I 
am inside the bounds of truth, when I say that 
scores, if not hundreds, of churches and ministers 
are hurt every year by such partial, inequitable 
and diabolical administration. 

These and kindred defects, it is to be hoped, will 
be remedied to good degree next General Confer- 
ence, unless we send up old-time ring-masters, who 
have their own preferment, more at stake than the 
Avelfare of God's militant host. God forbid that 
such should be the case, for the stone taken ''out of 
the wall " of a church like St. Paul's cries 
out," and "the beam out of the timber" in many a 
church like Fulton street, Elizabeth, "answers it." 

Notwithstanding these and kindred defects, such 
is our vitality, that the reflex results of Methodism 
on other denominations, in quickening them are ac- 
knowledged to be greater, than the direct results 
in making and keeping Methodists themselves. 
And such is the vitality of Methodism that she can 



GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 2. 317 

give a crop of malcontents, to other churches every 
year, and go grandly on multiplying without them. 
My own opinion of the mission of Methodism is 
commensurate, with my opinion of the mission of 
Americanism. My conviction is that as God in- 
tends America to emancipate, and civilize the 
world politically, so He intends Methodism to ele- 
vate, and regenerate the world spiritually. The 
work of the one is simultaneous and commensurate 
with that of the other. 

John Richard Green, in his admirable history of 
England, in speaking of what Methodism has done 
for other churches says : " The least results of 
Methodism are the Methodists themselves." I say 
the same of Americanism ; " The least results of 
Americanism are the Americans themselves." 
Such a statement may seem startling and unsup- 
portable, but when you have read history back- 
ward, forward, across, and have confirmed the 
same by personal inspection, you will come to the 
same conclusion. These views of mine will explain 
why I flame and storm when any villainous hand is 
thrust out against Americanism, on the one side, or 
Methodism on the other. I believe they are the 
Jachin and Boaz of Jehovah's civilizing, emanci- 
pating and evangelizing temple in this era. 

The history of Methodism is closely interlaced 
with that of this Republic. The history of this 
Republic is closely related to the history of Metho- 



3i8 GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 2. 

dism. The one could not have existed in such 
world-moving form without the other. The one 
cannot advance, in its intended mission to the na- 
tions of the earth without the other. 

There are many other organizations in this land. 
They have fine churches and many members, and I 
pray God to bless these more and more, but when 
I take into consideration that more of this world 
has come under the scepter of The Christ since 
Methodism was born in John Wesley's heart under 
Peter Bohler, February 7, 1738 (inside the space of 
153 years), than had come under its sway during 
all the 1,738 years that preceded, I cannot but think 
that Methodism is to be the great spiritual power 
of the future, unless she, too, ripens into corrup- 
tion, by falling into lust of secular power in- 
stead of spiritual blessing. If ever the preachers 
come to have a keener relish for a rich official than 
for a lost soul ; a fleeter foot toward the house of 
the luxurious sinner, than toward the hut of the im- 
pecunious saint; an "itching palm," a winking eye, 
a caoutchouc conscience, a man-pleasing, time-serv- 
ing, place-seeking and preferment-adoring spirit. 
In a word, if ever the time come when, as a body, 
Methodist preachers make the church dependent 
upon rich sinners, then we shall wither up by the 
roots. 

What we need is not more contracted churches, 
but bigger and better preachers ; not more toady- 



GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 2. 319 

ing, but more talent ; not more base sycophancy, 
but more mighty manhood ; not more mean fawn- 
ing, but more sterling Godliness ; not more servile 
adulation, but more of the terrible grandeur of the 
power of God resting upon us, so that we shall care 
for, and need no other power to bring to bay every 
enemy of God and man. [Amens.] 

O, for twenty thousand men with the trumpets of 
Peter Cartwright and of Jesse Lee, with the heart 
of Francis Asbury and" the fires of Benjamin 
Abbott, to bring up the Church to its highest 
heroism ; that it may keep pace in its spiritual 
power, with the millionaires in the monetary 
power, that as the millions are rolled up from 
the soil by the industries and enterprises of our 
people, these millions may be rolled out to the 
mission field to carry the gospel to all the world. 
Step by step, pari passii^ we are advancing with the 
State as the great heaven-sent Chieftainess, re- 
sponsible for the instruction and inspiration of the 
masses, so that they may come up themselves, and 
then bring all they have to bring others up. I 
like the ring from Washington of ten millions for 
an American university ; I would like the sound 
still better of ten millions being collected, and ten " 
thousand heralds " going forth into all the world to 
preach the Gospel to every creature." Not merely 
to take a missionary excursion and education, and 
then return on furlough at the expense of the mis- 



320 



GARLAND OF GRATITUDE, No. 



sionary treasury ; but ten thousand men who mean 
business as Paul meant it ; ten thousand men Avho 
will go out to live, and stay, and work, and preach, 
and plead, and pray, and die, and be buried, and 
sanctify the places they have saved by their graves. 
I, for one, am sick of this missionary holiday busi- 
ness. And the thinking part of the Church is 
getting tired of it. And it is to be feared the great 
Head of the Church is getting weary of it. And 
pretty soon the whole Church will revolt at it. It 
is high time to stop it. It never should have been 
begun. The man who is favored with a call to the 
mission field, should feel so absorbed that he would 
want no discharge. Let there be the spirit of 
genuine apostolicity shown on the foreign field ; 
let the missionaries rise to the heroism of living 
martyrs who glory in death for Christ's sake ; let 
it be known they go forth, to do and die gladly for 
the salvation of this world ; let it be seen that the 
world is being saved by their sacrifices, and it 
would be less troublesome, to raise ten millions for 
ten thousand such heroes than it is now to raise 
one million for one-tenth that number of comers 
and goers. We have the money ; we ought to have 
the men. We have the commission; we have the 
opened nations. The stress and grandeur of the 
situation are upon us. O, for some missionary 
eagle to swoop round the circles of the Church 
with an eye that sees all the work, and a voice that 



GARLAND OF CRA TITUDE, No. 



321 



will be heard round the world, rousing the Church 
to pour out its tens of millions, and stirring the 
young, with such strokes from God, as shall make 
them glad to go by thousands, and preach the 
Gospel to the heathen, till they fall, and falling, 
sweep up to glory from fields of victory. [Amens.] 
Total suppression of the rum traffic and full en- 
franchisement of women, would contribute greatly 
to this world's salvation, as would also free trade 
among all nations. Reasons for this hereafter. 
We should not now dwell so much, on conditions of 
success as on gratitude for success. Nevertheless, 
I have made this digression. If we have not made 
all the progress we ought, this need not prevent us 
from offering praise for the advance that has been 
made. If there are some obstructions that block the 
path, there are more inspirations that cheer the 
way. If there are some things over which we 
mourn and weep and pray, there are many things 
over which we are glad, and rejoice and praise. 
The pioneer of the cross has kept pace with the 
pioneer of the plough ; the rising, thickening vil- 
lages have been blessed with the rising, grow- 
ing churches ; the aggregating towns have 
been frequently supplied with able and aggres- 
sive preachers ; and whilst, in some of our largest 
cities, ''the world, the flesh and the devil" have 
been permitted to get ahead of us, chiefly through 
the inundation of foreign people and practices, 



322 GARLAND OB GRATITUDE, No. 2. 

nevertheless, on the whole, we have been enabled 
this year to present a larger percentage of popula- 
tion inside the Church than in any other year in 
our history. We have over ten million members 
in our Protestant Churches. Nearly one-half the 
people are either by person or proxy connected 
with the Church of Christ, and six millions more 
than one-half, if we include the Romanists, and I, 
for one, wish to include them. The Methodists 
constitute over one-third of the entire Protestant 
Church membership of the Republic. The past 
has been full of battles and successes ; the future 
laden with conflicts of hope. The dawn has really 
come. Behind it is the rising sun. Phoebus, sur- 
rounded with the tripping angels of the morn, is 
about to appear. The world is ripening and the 
east is red. Our Master has not misled us. His 
is the only kingdom that seems about to come. 
Every evolution bespeaks the fulfillment of His 
promise and the proximity of His person. His 
Spirit fills our eyes with vision and our hearts with 
love. Myriads have safely gone, and myriads more 
crowd to the golden landing. [Hallelujahs.] 

The Master and His love were never sung so 
sweetly by so many voices. The Gospel trumpet 
never had behind it so many hearts of feeling and 
minds of power. The Gospel tree never had in it 
so much vitahty ; nor on it so many leaves of 
promise ; nor round it so many influences of 
heaven ; nor under it such soil of culture ; nor over 



GARLAND OF GRA TITVDE, No. 



323 



it such balm of blessing. Long through the lone 
ages has it been preparing. But when ready it 
will flush forth in a night. Then shall a land be 
born in one day." Then shall a nation be brought 
forth at once." The heavenly forces are all on our 
side. The goal of the world is The Christ. The eyes 
of the earth are examining the King. Every pro- 
gression is radiant with promise. Every fulfillment 
opens up a larger vista and a clearer view. Every 
heart-beat feels the ecstasy and every mind-flight 
thrills with joy. Closing in and over us is the 
heavenly world ; our life inhales the compressed 
rapture, our being exhales the celestial radiance, 
and so, amid this converging glory, gathering up 
the streamers of this nation's standard, its physio- 
graphic, agricultural, financial, mechanical, educa- 
tional, humanitarian, heraldic and religious, we 
weave them all into a double garland of gratitude to 
our loving, heavenly Father, and approaching rev- 
erently His glorious throne, we loyally lay it at 
His feet, crying with the departed Hebrew saint: 




" Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto 
Thy name give glory, for Thy mercy, and for Thy 
truth's sake." [Amens, Hallelujahs, Glories.] 



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